Rima Can't Spell The MST!
by KumaKichii
Summary: The crazy story written by Tsuki no Kimi, with Kichii's two-cents worth added in!
1. Preface

**The Random Author's Note Section Before the Actual Story That Most of You Will Most Likely Ignore:**

**First, before you start writing angry comments in the review section about how it's important to get the author's permission before MST-ing a story and blah blah blah, , I want to state that I have complete authorization from Tsuki no Kimi, original author of Rima Can't Spell, to write and post this MST. **

**Now I must point out before you start that no one is making you read this story, and if you don't enjoy it, you may simply stop reading it and move on. That said, please don't leave reviews or PM me saying things like "DUDE UR LIKE SO NOT FUNEY U RUINED A GOOD STORY;SDLJALF!1!111!one1!**

**HOWEVER.**

**Any reviews and/or PMs containing praise for being such an awesome, witty person and loving you guys enough to post this wonderful piece of work will be accepted with open arms. *strokes ego***

**Anywho.**

**Side effects of reading the Rima Can't Spell MST may include but are not limited to…**

**Laughing, squeeing, gagging, nausea, vomiting, eye-rolling, extremely loud and obnoxious gigglefits, pains in the sides due to excessive laughter, "D'awwwwwww"-ing, keyboard smashing, making faces that resemble the emoticon o_0" in an uncanny fashion, refusal to leave the computer to eat, sleep or use the restroom, peeing oneself, the feeling that it is necessary to kill yourself because now you feel you've seen it all, excessive screaming at the computer, and the need to review this story because it is the awesomest thing you've ever read.**

**You have been warned.**

**-Kichii**


	2. His Name Looks Mexican?

Monday, May 3rd

I sat down at the guardian's table, only to be greeted by Yaya not shutting up.

"COOKIIIIESS! COOKIEESS!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Tadase in his girl-voice.

They haven't changed at all since they were eleven. They're in their TEENS. Japanese kids sure are messed up.

(not that I'm messed up).

And that is when I said the doomed words to make Tadase shut up, at least temporarily.

"Prince."

**That's ONE word, actually.**

It was uttered quietly, but loud enough so that Kiseki and Tadase could both hear it.

_Poing. _

**Poing? That's my new onomatopoeia of the day!**

"YOU! COMMONER! I AM A _KING! _OH-HOHOHOHOHO!" he laughed like a pyromaniacal Santa Claus.

**Santa, can I have a flamethrower for Christmas?**

I turned around, only to be greeted by the one person who was perhaps more annoying than Tadase staring at me kind of funny, his eyes all glassed over.

Urgh, I can't even spell his name. Uhhhh...

N-A-J-E-H-E-E-C-O?

**What I don't understand is how the litter J could possibly sound like a G.**

Haa, his name looks Mexican.

2 minutes later

I asked HIM politely, "how do you spell your name?"

"Why do you want to know, Rima?" said Amu, turning around and staring at me.

"maybe she liiiikes him," sang Yaya. Annoying idiot! Dammit! Tadase was looking from me to HIM.

"Uhhhh," he said, laughing awkwardly, "N-A-G-E-H-I-K-O."

**Don't feel too bad for not knowing how to spell his name, RiRi-Tan. He doesn't know how to spell it either.**

I hate spelling.

"Why do you want to know?"

"none of you business."

He gave a suddenly evil grin and said, "maybe you do like me, then." Damn!

"No!" I said, shooting him The Death Glare. "I'm recording the day's events. It's not my fault you have a ten-letter name."

"Rima-chan? It's eight letters," said Amu under her breath.

"EIGHT LETTERS, THEN!" I said loudly, and then the chair proceeded to fall backwards. KusuKusu then started laughing like a maniac, making me go red like a beetroot.

"Are you OK, Rima?" said Nagehiko, peering over the table at me.

**This spelling error is going to have me calling him NaGAYhiko for the rest of my life.**

I was silent for a minute on the ground, processing what he had just said.

"She's not OK if she's not insulting me," said Nagehiko, looking worried.

"You used my name without an honorific," I said in a low voice.

"What?"

"YOU USED MY NAME WITHOUT AN HONORIFIC!" I said, rolling off the ground and waving a fork threateningly. "WHAT GIVES YOU THAT RIGHT, HUH?"

**Because midgets with forks are dangerous in everyone's book.**

_Poing._

"Bala-balance-u!"

The green stars disappeared off my cheeks and I rounded on my guardian chara. "What was that for?" I said in a stage whisper.

"Rima-tan was going out of control!" KusuKusu squeaked.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha," said Tadase. Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I rounded on him going, "something funny, PRINCE?"

_Poing. _

Ha.

Lunchtime

After that morning's colossal foul-up, I wanted to forget Nagehiko even existed. But no. clearly, Amu wanted to cause me pain when she said "Nagehiko! Come eat lunch with us!"

**Yes, NaGAY! Come eat with us!**

EVILLLL.

And god forbid he could just sit down beside Amu. No. she chose to sit down beside the golden-haired demon that was shooting daggers at him.

_**SHE **_**chose to sit beside the golden-haired demon that was shooting daggers at **_**HIM. **_**Amu must really be dense—even typos realize that Nagihiko's a he-she.**

"Hi, Mashiro-san," he said evilly. I could practically hear the gears whirring loudly in his brain. "I can hear the gears whirring evilly in your brain." I said.

**Yes, because that's TOTALLY normal.**

"What?"

"Stop playing dumb."

"I'm not playing dumb," He said complacently. His dark eyes were calculating how to mess up my life even more! Nagehiko's big, lovely, browny-hazel...

DAMMIT! WHAT THE HELL AM I WRITING! DID I JUST USE "LOVELY" AND "NAGEHIKO" IN THE SAME SCENTENCE?

30 seconds later

Nagehiko asked, "what are you writing in that book, Mashiro-san? I think you just ripped a page with the end of your pencil."

English Class (I'm supposed to be writing What I Did Over Summer Vacation but oh well)

I knew it! Nagehiko managed to finally wreak havoc before the end of lunch.

**Did he steal your pencil?**

HE STOLE MY PENCIL.

**I knew it.**

And not just any pencil either. I'm pretty sure he just reached into my pencil case and grabbed one while I wasn't looking, but he stole the special good-luck one I use for tests, the one I've had since third grade, the one that has, "this pencil belongs to Ri-Ri-tan!" written on it.

I MUST GET MY PENCIL BACK.

At all costs. And without it getting around that I call myself, "Ri-Ri-tan!"

Not that I do, or anything.

***TSUNDERE BLOCK***


	3. His Sense of Humor is Twisted!

Friday, May 7th

Ok. It's before school. I MUST ASK _HIMMM_ FOR MY PENCIL BACK. Because last period, I have a test. AND I CAN'T WRITE THE TEST WITHOUT MY RI-RI-TAN PENCIL!

**Here, use a pen.**

10:30, science class (supposed to be dissecting a tapeworm but one of my fanboys is doing it for me)

OK, confession time. I totally chickened out. Why? I have no idea. Every time I thought about it, I got really hot and sweaty and scared. Why am I scared of a boy with hair like a girl?

**Why are you asking your diary questions that it has no intention or answering?**

I don't know, either.

11:30

I actually did go up to ask him at the start of the free period.

"what is it, Mashiro?" he asked, laying his eyes... what was I writing? Anyway, he asked what it was.

"Um..." I kind of trailed off. I COULD HEAR THE EVIL GEARS WHIRRING IN HIS BRAIN AGAIN. How could Amu-chan not know Nagihiko is really a mad evil genius?

"Mashiro, your face is bright red," the Mad Evil Genius observed, looking at me even harder.

"Do you know what the homework was for science?" I managed to say.

So I chickened out again.

12:11

Maybe if I write it enough, it will come true...

MASHIRO RIMA IS NOT A COWARD. MASHIRO RIMA IS NOT A COWARD. MASHIRO RIMA IS NOT A COWARD. MASHIRO RIMA IS COWARD. MASHIRO RIMA IS TOTALLY A COWARD. MASHIRO RIMA IS ABSOLUTELY AND POSITIVELY A C-O-W-A-R-D.

**Stay positive!**

So much for that idea.

_Seiyo Secondary School Grade Ten Spelling List:_

_Analyze_

_Antonym_

_Automobile_

_Convention_

_Develop_

_Eloquent_

_Fluency_

_Horizon_

_Mechanics_

_Phonemic_

_Synonym_

_Xylophone_

_Xenophobia_

_Yogurt _

ARRGH! I CAN'T DO THESE!

**I made a vow to not eat anything I couldn't spell the name of. For Rima, I guess that rules out yogurt. And xylophones.**

1:01

Nagihiko walked over and told me, "you're ripping the page with your pencil again, Mashiro. What are you writing in there? Your words look big and spiky."

NASTIIIII.

**I shall now start spelling the word "nasty" with multiple I's.**

1:30

The test is next period. I'm starting to get really desperate!

Ua;shg'aheiwoduhhhhhhhhhhhh.

**If she's writing in a diary, how can she keyboard smash?**

**...Rima Mashiro has created the pencil smash.**

Damn you, Fujeesakee Nagihiko.

1:31

Sorry. Apparently that's "Foojisaki."

1:32

I went and asked HIM how to spell his last name.

"Why do you want to know? Writing more love letters? You've never been a very good speller, Ri-Ri-tan. It's F-U-J-I-S-A-K-I."

I swear his sense of humour wasn't this twisted four years ago.

**Apparently, Rima writes like a Canadian. Humour? Isn't it humor?**

Anyway, damn you, Fujisaki Nagihiko.

1:15

Well, break is over. I guess I'll have to just write the test without my Ri-Ri-tan pencil.

It's just a stupid pencil. It's the knowledge that counts. Right?

**Yes, but you lack the pencil AND the knowledge.**

Uhhhh.

3:30

I'm still in a daze from what happened. I can't believe it.

Ok, let me start over.

I was on the way to my history class, because that's the subject where I had the big test. Suddenly, Nagihiko came out oh nowhere, and held out something in his hand.

**Her dialect has changed from Canadian to redneck. He came out-o-nowhere!**

"Here's your pencil, Ri-Ri-tan. Guess you can take that test no problem now, right?"

I kind of stood there for a minute, and then took the pencil with the tips of my fingers, trying not to let them touch his hand (I didn't succeed at all, but hopefully I scratched him with my nails).

I then managed, "How did you know about my test?"

He gave me an evil grin and said slyly, "Amu told me."

I muttered something under my breath about killing Hinamori later.

"I didn't think it mattered that much, anyway. It's all about how much you know, right?"

"But I don't know very much at all," I mumbled.

He actually laughed then. LAUGHED. In fact, I didn't expect a laugh at all. More of a "MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA!" out of the Mad Evil Genius.

But I guess even evil geniuses are human.

**They're also crossdressers. Doctor Frankenstein wore a dress.**

4:30

I was waiting on the corner for my Mom/Dad to pick me up. I never know which one it's going to be, as they're always fighting over who will take the "No. 1 Parent" spot. Then Nagihiko walked by and said, "Hi, Ri-Ri-tan. How'd you do on the test?"

I thought it prudent to stay silent.

"I ask," he went on, grinning, "because I can clearly see the top of your history test sticking out of your bag."

I made to stuff it inside, but not before he saw the mark.

**The two similarities between Rima and myself… Height (or lack thereof), and disorganization.**

My mom pulled up at the end of the street, and I mumbled, "I have to go."

"hey, Rima?" he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. I froze. Why could I not move? I remember thinking that it's really bad that I stopped, and I might be paralyzed for life. Then I felt my head turn around.

**Stop touching me. Stop touching me. WHY are you still TOUCHING me?**

The Mad Evil Genius gave me a trademark evil grin. "two out of thirty isn't that bad, Ri-Ri-tan."

And then he ran off in one direction, and I ran off in the other to the street corner, and people watching probably wondered why two long-haired people were running in opposite directions as fast as they could go, just like in a distance-equals-rate-times-time math question.

Not that I'm able to solve those. Or understand the concept at all.

**Me neither.**


	4. His Hormones are Raging

Saturday, May 8th

My parents had another fight today.

**Sounds pleasant.**

But at least I can't hear it now. It used to be I could just block it out, but it's much, much easier now that I've got giant headphones. They do a terrific job of blocking out all the maniacal screaming.

Right now, "Love Gun" by Hirano Aya is in the lead for the best music for blocking out yelling.

12:06

They've been at it for awhile now.

I'm kind of hungry, but no way I'm entering the War Zone, aka the kitchen. I'd rather die.

**If you'd rather die, wouldn't it be better to venture into the danger of the war zone?**

1:33

My mom came into my room, looking a little crazy. No, wait. That's an understatement. She looked TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY MAD.

**Like a certain mad evil genius? No? Alright then.**

"pack your things, Rima," she said. "we're leaving."

So I packed my schoolbag full of books, sudoku sheets, my PSP and KusuKusu's egg (also the Ri-Ri-tan pencil but... you don't need to know that. )

**Then why did you write it?**

And then I did the thing in the movies, where you tie the sheets together to get out of the window.

**Anyone who weighed as much as a NORMAL high schooler wouldn't be able to do that. More proof that RiRi-Tan is, indeed, a midget.**

And then I walked what seemed like a gazillion blocks to the school. Not the high school. The elementary school. I didn't even know where my feet were taking me, but they ended up tracing the familiar path to the royal garden. In fact, I can't even believe it's unlocked, but it made a good hiding spot. It's the weekend, and no one will bother me here.

Now I'm tired, so I'm going to go to sleep...

2:07

I woke up to see Tadase across from me, and the familiar shape of Amu next to me. All the guardians were there, and they looked like they used to when we were guardians. All happy and laughing and eating doughnuts. I was even glad to see stupid Nagihiko, laughing sycophantically with Tadase.

**The guardians were there. And they looked like they did when they were the guardians. But they're still the guardians, which means they looked… like they did when they were the guardians. But do they still look like that? They ARE still the guardians, which means they should still look how they looked when they were the guardians, which they still are, and they still do.**

"did you doze off again, Rima?" asked Amu, laughing. "you need to get more sleep."

"Waaaaahh, Yaya was up ALL night studying for Nikaidou-sensei's big quiz!" complained Yaya in her little grade-five-squeaky voice.

I laughed, and I think was about to start talking with Amu again when Tadase looked right at me.

"Wake up, Mashiro-san," he said, and I said a little sleepily, "No! what are you taking about! I want to talk more with you and Amu-chan and maybe even Nagi..."

"What are you babbling about, Mashiro-san? Please wake up, before the janitor finds you." and then I woke up for real. I should have guessed it was all a dream. But Tadase was still in his king's spot, shaking me.

"Tadase? What are you doing here?"

He smiled kind of weakly. "I guess I wasn't the only one who had a bad case of nostalgia."

"You mean you want to take your rightful place as King again! Follow your instincts!" corrected Kiseki.

"what were you doing sleeping, "Mashiro-san?" questioned Tadase, quickly poking his Chara back into his pocket.

**My guess is that she was sleeping while she was sleeping.**

"Oh... umm.." I looked at him again. He was looking all eager and sympathetic, and I ended up telling him everything. And he never dropped the horrible I'm-kind-and-sympathetic-face! When I was finally finished, he actually smiled. "well, normally it would be bad thing if you ran away using sheets like in the movies, but we'd all miss you if you ended up going with your mother."

"So I can stay here, right?"

He frowned a little. "wouldn't you give the current guardians a bit of a shock if they found a sixteen-year-old former queen sleeping at their table?"

"I guess so," I mumbled.

"well, maybe you're mother's... um... cooled off a little now."

"maybe," I kind of smiled and started walking. "but if she makes me move again, I'm running away to Seiyo Elementary again, and this time to the basement."

**If she makes me move **_**again**_**, I'm running away to Seiyo Elementary **_**again**_**, and this time to the basement. …Again.**

About 2:30, I think. my watch is broken.

Guess who I ran into?

**I'd rather not, since you're going to tell me anyways.**

Nagihiko! As if I can't see enough of him in school.

"Mashiro-san, are you all right?" he actually looked all worried. "Hotori told me what happened."

"HE DID?"

"well, he told Amu, but I was there, too," he amended. "So... are you moving away?"

"none of your business!" I snapped. I was really pissed at that little blond-haired nasty for telling my secrets to the Mad Evil Genius!

**That's "little blond-haired NASTIIIIIIII" if you will.**

"fine, then," said Nagihiko, and I could hear the gears in his brain whirring again. "I suppose it's very noble of you, trying to carry on this burden alone and trying to seem selfless by not troubling your friends with your problems. Do you like how I put that in such poetic context? My, what a drama queen you are."

**I feel like he's making a reference to several fanfictions outside this one.**

"FINE!" I fumed. "If she makes me move away, I'll go live in the Seiyo Elementary basement and live off rats. So... NO! I'M NOT MOVING! HAPPY?"

Then Nagihiko did a really scary thing. He HUGGED me. Gah! Raging hormones much?

**No, he's just a very happy boy. Girl… Thing…**

Wait, let me cross that out, because that sounds very unlike Nagihiko to give into hormones. And it's not hormones. It's caring what happens to someone you've known for four years. Right?

Right.

**Riiiiight.**

Anyway, we stayed like that for a minute, and then he released me and grinned. "see you on Monday, Ri-Ri-tan."

And then he disappeared.


	5. His Silences are Never Awkward

Monday

AAHHHHH BLEA';SL;AS.

**Pencilsmash**

I can't believe he HUGGED ME.

**Believe it!**

Ahhhh!

Evil mad genius.

Later

Uhhhh...

We have to dissect a tapeworm today (again).

Gross.

Meh.

12:00

I have been avoiding Nagihiko ALL DAY.

It's getting really hard.

***resists urge to make a THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID joke***

I've also had to skip classes because of it, which means my marks will go like this: DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN.

Well, I was getting pretty bad in everything anyway.

2:30

Nagihiko finally found me! Nooooo!

He saw me hiding behind a bunch of pipes when I was supposed to be in math.

"are you skipping class, Rima?" he asked, looking at me over a particularly fat pipe.

"no." I said, trying to keep any emotion out of my voice.

"tsk-tsk, you naughty girl. Skipping classes."

"why is it only when you say that does it sound so dirty?"

He just gave me an evil grin and offered me his hand to help me up. Purposely ignoring his hand, I got up and brushed off my skirt.

"Mashiro," he said, fixating me with his eyes. This was a really bad move to pull on me, as it pretty much made all look of exasperation and anger slide off my face. "What do we learn?"

"Nothing. Because I skipped class."

**Nice logic.**

"No. We learn that avoiding your friends does not work. They hunt you down madly during all their spares and wind up discovering you playing Klondike on your iPod underneath pipes when you should be doing math. Understand?"

"meh."

We walked in silence for awhile. I had never really appreciated just how big our teacher's parking lot is. I mean, it stretches forever, and the wall still seemed very far away even though we should have reached halfway. Every now and then, I kept sneaking looks at him. He seemed perfectly at ease with himself, which made me feel a little jealous as that's more than I could say for myself. Arrrggh! I remember thinking. I swear he's never been in an awkward silence in his life! Well, it felt pretty awkward to me, anyway. Awkward silences are funny that

**Well yeah, because they're… Awkward.**

OK, I was blathering again. Lets skip the long, long time it took for us to cross the parking lot, and continue at the point where he turned to head into the science department. I asked him before parting ways, "Why were you never this mean when you first transferred in to Seiyo?"

He gave me a sideways look. "You could say I resorted to desperate measures."

3:15

After that, I couldn't' skip out on the "guardians meeting." Actually, let me make something clear. We're not even guardians anymore, but we still assist the current guardians with their X-egg duties and yell at the Tsukiyomis for being such lazy Easter Jackasses and blah, blah, blah. I haven't even MET this Ikuto but I've seen him. From what I've seen, he's WAY better looking than Tadase, so maybe Amu should dump Tada-Gay for him. Hmmm.

**Easter Jackass? Screw the bunny—IT'S AN EASTER DONKEY!**

Anyway, as soon as I walked in I was treated to a Trademark Yaya Glomp.

"Yaya was worried!" she whined. "Rima-tan is mean for not seeing Yaya and skipping class!"

Tadase gave me a significant I-told-you-so look, and Amu smiled widely. "Thank god, Rima! We thought something had happened!" when I sat down, she said snidely out of the corner of her mouth, "So, what REALLY happened between you and Nagi?"

"nothing!" I hissed back.

"Of course," said Nagihiko innocently, as if we were talking about skiing conditions. "Nothing! Unless you can call _that_ nothing."

Yaya wailed, "what nothing! What nothing! What happened, Rima-tan?"

I tried giving him The Evil Death Glare, but it might have just turned into an exasperated look.

"Anyway," Amu pressed on, "I'm having a party next weekend. It's my birthday and I've managed to clear my parents and sister out for the entire night! They'll be away sleeping at a friends house. So I've already asked everyone and you have to come too, okay?"

**Does she have a say in this? Really?**

And then something horrible happened. I actually smiled! Really widely. I tried to hold it back but Nagihiko whacked me and said, "Stop holding back that sick grin, Mashiro, because it's not working."

**Now, Nagihiko, didn't your mother ever tell you it's improper to play Whack-A-Midget on school property?**


	6. His Twin Sister

Wednesday

I walked into class, and was greeted by Nikaidou performing a jig in front of the class. Oh horrors! Why he decided to stop teaching elementary school and be the teacher for our class – AGAIN – is beyond me.

**He's one of those creepy pedo-teachers that stalk little blond-haired children.**

Later

Thank god Nagihiko's in another class. I fell off my chair AGAIN. And this time my skirt might've flipped up a little.

What's really scary is that everyone clambered over desks to have a good look.

**Everyone? Hm, and here I thought Amu was straight…**

Lunchtime

I hid in the library, because it always seems I run into Nagihiko when I'm trying to eat my lunch in peace. I started playing on one of the computers, and took an, "Are you a Mary-Sue?" test. To my utter horror, I scored a whopping "153", making me fall into the category of "'40 – 70' – Impossibly irreversible Mary-Sue!"

**Her sue-ness is off the charts.**

"Hey, Amu, look over here – Mashiro's a Mary-sue!"

And, to my shock and pissed-off-ness, Nagihiko had been watching me take the test for the last fifteen minutes.

"I bet you don't even know what a Mary-sue is!"

"A-Mary-sue," he said, faster than necessary, "is-a-heroine-in-a-fanfiction-who-is-perfect-in-every-way-and-ends-up-bedding-all-the-other-characters. A-Mary-sue-may-also-be-the-victim-of-self-insertion-"

"OK! I GET IT!"

"And it seems if you look up 'Mary-sue" in the dictionary, you'll find Rima's head stuck there, said Amu, who was inspecting my test results.

So mean.

**I actually did this. It works.**

Art

Brilliant. I hate art. Especially because we have to draw cursed flowers and Fujisaki can draw them better than me.

"Oh, it's just a few tips I learned in Europe," he said vaguely.

Luckily – or perhaps unluckily – I was one table away at the time. "I thought it was just your sister who went to Europe?" I said, as I tried to draw a tulip (it ended up looking more like a frog hacking up fireworks).

**That takes skill, RiRi.**

And then, for some reason, he looked really scared. Actually, he looked so freaked out I looked in the doorway to see if some slime-monster-goblin had appeared there or something.

"Oh... I came too... for a bit," he finished lamely.

Weird.

After School

YES! I get to go shopping with Amu. No guy likes going shopping, so that means no Tada-gay or, worse yet, Fujisaki tagging along. Ha.

But Yaya's coming too. Whee.

The mall. I don't even know the name of this mall, it's just "the mall".

Gah! Yaya was on one of her sugar highs, which means we have to zoom around the mall and zone in on anything frilly.

Everyone keeps forgetting I have short legs, dammit.

Amu's house

Gah! Something really weird happened. Me and Amu and Yaya were all playing with Ami (against our will) when Amu tore of her tiara and went, "screw this. I have marks in my head from this Barbie tiara. Let's go to Nagi-kun's house."

I replied, "oh, gosh, I'd love to come with you, but I have homework."

Amu held my arm in an iron grip and said, "no, we didn't, Rima. Nikaidou was too busy doing his Irish jig to assign us any homework, remember?"

"Fujisaki will get pissed if he sees the evil demon in his house."

**No he won't.**

"No, he won't! **(See?)** There's no excuse! Right, Yaya?" but Yaya was too busy pulling at her hair ribbon. It had kind of fallen out, and it was kind of scary. She didn't look like a little kid without her pigtails.

But anyway, I was dragged along. And so then we arrived at the Fujisaki house, which was only after we had hiked though THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. We had to walk for miles through forest! I haven't exactly told anyone, but the sun was going down and the one thing I'm scared to death of is being in the forest in the dark. I never let go of Amu's arm the entire way, and neither did Yaya (who was moaning at random intervals, "there are wolves in the mean, mean forest that want to eat Yaya for second breakfast").

Anyway, the door was answered by Nagihiko's mum, who looks just about as much like an evil genius as Nagihiko. That's why I hung back, but then the evil-mad-genius aura disappeared and she was all, "look at this cute little blond girl! Are you really fifteen? You still look like you're in grade school!"

**I know the feeling…**

Ehheh.

Thankfully, she paused for breath and Amu asked where Nagihiko was.

"Oh! She – he – she – he's not, um, here."

**Again with the he-she business. Can't we just start referring to Nagihiko as an "it"?**

Nadeshiko's mom looked kind of look confused for a moment, and then said, "well, anyway, I think she – he'll – be back soon. Why don't you wait in the garden?"

**Nadeshiko's mom? I thought she was Nagihiko's mom?**

When most people think of a garden, they think of things like climbing roses and maybe a bird bath in the backyard, right?

Wrong. For the Fujisakis, that means KOI PONDS and EVIL TREES LIKE FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ and ACRES AND ACRES OF LAND! I swear their garden was bigger than a public park. Then Yaya wandered off into the distance with some vague idea of picking apples (yep, they even had APPLE TREES. I mean, geez), and Amu saw her makeup sliding off and totally panicked, making a beeline for indoors.

Which left me freaking out, as I was left listening to wind whistle eerily.

I kind of stood still for a minute, and then I looked up just in time to see something drop to the ground from the tree above me. Not just ANYTHING. The thing turned around, and I realized it was Nagihiko with his hair in a ponytail in a KIMONO. Obviously, I totally freaked out. Sure, Nagihiko kind of looks like a girl with his long hair, but cross-dressing is DEFINITELY going over the line!

**He crossed that line when you were in grade school.**

I finally managed to stammer out, "Fujisaki? Why are you cross dressing?"

For a minute, Nagihiko looked like those criminals on CSI Miami – you know, where at the very end, the blond-haired guy with the giant sunglasses finds out who the criminal is, and they're all, "Oh, no! you've found me out!"

But it must have been my imagination, because almost immediately the look was gone and Nagihiko gave a high pitched giggle. "Ahahaha! I'm Fujisaki Nadeshiko. Nagihiko's my twin brother. A lot of people get us mixed up."

**Except the typos. Typos know all.**

So THIS is Amu's so-called best friend! The one who went away for what was supposed to be a year. After two years had gone by, Amu finally got another letter. That she was happy and having fun, blah-blah-blah-blah, and Sorry, she wasn't coming back to Japan for a few more years. No specified date, just a vague few years.

After about a minute of stunned silence, I said, "But I thought you were in Europe?"

She looked a bit panicked. "Please don't tell Amu-chan, ok? I'm only staying for a short while, and it would be stupid to see her again, be all happy, and then just fly back again."

"So, why did you come back."

"Uhhhh... she looked about shiftily. "I got sick of doing my own laundry. **LOLWHUT **And I also wanted to meet you, Rima-chan!" she took my hands, all *happy*. I swear, she was the total opposite of mad-evil-genius Nagihiko!

**Split personality syndrome. Oh look, she's holding hands with NADE-CHAN.**

"Me? Why?" seriously? A big jet-lagged trip all the way back to Japan to do a couple loads of laundry and meet me. And then fly all the way back again.

"well, I wanted to see how everyone was. They seem to be doing fine. You also were Queen in my place, right? And Amu's gotten kind of close to you over the past four years, so..."

She trailed off, but I could easily finish the sentence for her. _I wanted to see what was so great about you_? _I wanted to compare_? I could easily guess a million more, because sometimes when I left the room, Amu would wonder quietly with Tadase and Yaya what possibly could be taking her best friend so long. and then I would wonder the same things.

"Oh." It wasn't a nasty, sarcastic, 'Oh' but just a kind of wondering one. I heard Amu's footsteps faintly, and then Nadeshiko suddenly grabbed my hand and said quickly, "run!"

**RUN, BEECH!**

She ran really, really fast. _How can this person run in a kimono? I can see all the dirt spots at the hem already, _was my first thought. And then my next one was, _aaaahhhh!_,as Nadeshiko dragged me through various underbrush, pulled me up a tree, and doubled back a couple times. Finally she stopped at a bench. As she sat down, something rolled out of the sash of her kimono. It was a Shugo Chara egg! It looked exactly like Nagihiko's except it was pink. Hastily picking it up off the ground, she said, "Oh. This is Temari."

I showed her KusuKusu, who was also confused for a minute about why Nagihiko was in a kimono. While KusuKusu was all, "Rima-tan! Nagi's a transvestite!" I asked her, "why won't Temari come out?"

**THAT, THAT DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY. *Brick'd***

She stared at a tree for a minute and said, "I don't know."

In truth, we both knew. Duh! She didn't believe in her would-be-self anymore. As we both watched the little pink egg on the bench between us, it flickered once, like it was debating whether or not to disappear. Nadeshiko seemed to realize I must have guessed what happened, because she said, "Well, it was during the time I was in Europe. I kind of didn't want to dance anymore. That was the desire Temari was born from."

"the desire to do Japanese dancing?"

She nodded. "KusuKusu was born from your desire to make others laugh, right?"

"How did you know that?" I had never really told anyone exactly WHY my Shugo Chara pranced around in a clown suit, because somehow it ended up sounding really stupid when said aloud.

**She watches you.**

"Lucky guess. So, it would be as if you just didn't want to be funny anymore. Kind of like that. I didn't feel like dancing anymore. And so, Temari fell back into slumber."

She appeared to have finished her story, and stared at the tree in silence again.

"Nadeshiko!" someone called faintly, back the way we came.

"Oh, _crap_," said Nadeshiko. "I'd better go." She hugged me tightly, and said, "let's be friends, okay?"

**Hug count: 2**

And then she promptly disappeared, reminding me irresistibly of her much darker twins exits.

Arrrggh, my hand hurts.


	7. His Various Reasons

Friday

We all get out early today! and then Amu's making us come to her house right after. She's actually gone kind of party-ballistic lately, threatening us with Suu's whisk and has a weird flame cracking in her eyes.

"So, who else is coming, Amu?" I said, when Nagihiko finally shut up about some amusing story that happened in his history class.

**Because only Nagihiko could find History amusing.**

"Oh! Um, Kukai, Kairi, you guys, Lulu-"

"why Lulu?" demanded Yaya. "she's insane! She scares Yaya!"

"I dunno, she said she'd come – Hoshina Utau, and... Tsukiyomi-Ikuto." She said Ikuto's name really fast and in a mumble in the hope that Tadase wouldn't hear it. She probably would have gotten away with it, too, but Nagihiko said really loudly, "The perverted cat-eared guy? No! You're joking!" and started laughing crazily.

**OOC Nagi, much?**

"Tsukiyomi Ikuto? That twisted pervert who should be in Juvie? I can't believe you invited him!" glared Tadase, and we all felt a character change coming.

"He invited himself!" wailed Amu, throwing her head on the table.

"Typical," I said. "But if you invite his sister, he's totally going to tag along. Or maybe he's just too in love with you to stay away."

Tadase aimed the croissant at my head, but it ended up killing Ran and Pepe instead, who were floating by my left shoulder at the time.

"Never been very good in basketball, have you, Hotori?" I asked mildly, watching Ran wave around with pastry in her hair. "I can see by your aim."

**What does throwing a pastry have to do with BASKETBALL? Baseball, sure. But…**

"Neither have you," pointed out Nagihiko.

"**Neither have I!" Kichii pointed out enthusiastically, but her attempt at being noticed by the multiple fictional characters was ignored.**

"Oh, and I bet you're a basketball Einstein, huh?" I said, giving him the Death Glare and happily succeeding this time.

"I'm okay." He said, but the tone of his voice declared the matter closed.

**WHY YES, HE IS. WHY DO YOU ASK?**

"Anyway!" said Amu hurriedly. "Ran, Miki, Suu; can you entertain everyone else's charas in some way?"

"HAI!" they all yelled in unison.

"even though we're going to need fifty cans of tuna if we want to entertain Yoru," said Miki dryly.

"WE'RE DONE WITH THAT SUBJECT!" Amu practically yelled, looking very harassed (and not in the way you think).

So we all started out. actually, it was kind of funny in a twisted way; me and Nagihiko flanking Amu and giving each other evil looks, and then Tadase and Yaya looking on at us from the back. Yaya suddenly pulled at her hair ribbon, and all the hair fell out. none of us noticed, either, until we got to the Hinamori house. "Yaya!" said Amu, suddenly turning around. "Oh – you're right here. You..." she looked all panicked. "You put your hair down! Oh, my God! You look six years older!"

"Ehheh," Yaya laughed. "My hair ribbon was falling out."

There was a swelling silence, and then I went quietly, "You're not speaking in third person."

**IT'S THE APOLCALYPSE! …But where are the zombies?**

"what?" said Yaya, looking surprised. "Oh. I guess Ya-I'm not."

That was when Kukai walked in, and Yaya quickly stared the other way. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who saw, but I think I know the reason why Yaya let her hair down.

"Soooo, what are we going to do?" demanded Kukai. "Is everyone here?"

"Now everyone," remarked Utau dryly from the doorway with Lulu in tow.

Iru and Eru ran away from Nana, who was shrieking, "I sense a lost soul! Lulu-chan! Lost soul alert!"

**That's not creepy or anything.**

Then Miki, who had just flown in, remarked, "Well, I guess this means Ikuto's here too, as I see Yoru's already eaten through all the tuna fish. How the hell did he open all the cans?"

"Claws, nya!" said Yoru. "they're like can openers!"

"Nooooo, not the tuna!" said Amu, looking stricken. "Ami puts that in her sandwiches...she's going to kill Ikuto! And I wouldn't mind watching that," she added under her breath.

**Just like the millions of Amuto fangirls on this site wouldn't mind watching you two *bleeeeeeeeeeep***

"I doubt a nine-year-old could kill me," said Ikuto, who I had seen jump in from the window.

"Why can't you walk through the door like a civilized human being?" demanded Utau. "remember that time you went through my friends' window and set off the burglar alarm?"

"ha, ha!" everyone laughed except Tadase, who had gone all stony-faced.

"what's the matter, kiddy king?" questioned Ikuto. "Your face looks like cement."

He purposely turned away.

"it's because he's losing to an older man," I told Ikuto in a stage whisper.

"AM NOT!" said Tadase, firing up.

"it's already noisy," remarked Kairi from beside me, where he had sat down unnoticed.

"why does everyone keep coming in without my knowledge?" cried Amu, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Yes, why didn't you notice me, Amu-chan?" frowned Ikuto.

"Because I don't like cat-eared perverts," said Amu testily.

"he just looks like a regular twenty-something to me," I observed.

"Ah, but Rima-chan," said Ikuto, giving an evil smirk, "that's because I just got home from school. In my spare time, I actually drive around in an ice cream truck, pedophile-ing little kids-"

**That's okay—the fangirls (and Amu) love the things you do, even if they're creepy.**

"Disgusting," muttered Tadase under his breath.

"**Sexy!" echoed the fangirls.**

Amu turned away too. It seemed she found this disgusting too, but then I saw her shoulders shaking and realized she was having silent fits of laughter.

**Or maybe she was having a fangasm.**

Later

Oh, god. Yaya found the DDR mats lying under the couch, and now Yaya's trying to play.

"The mat doesn't like Yaya!" she screamed in frustration, kicking Kairi instead of the left arrow.

Amu, who was hitting them all, kept wailing, "you're hitting the ARROWS, Yaya! And only when they get to the top!

**I can't think of anything witty to put here, simply because I know that when it comes to DDR, I suck worse than Yaya.**

"But they're going too fast!..."

I was actually hoping Yaya could win, because I was playing winner and Amu could probably own me. And then I'd never hear the end of the short jokes...

But we all saw it coming that Yaya totally lost. "Mean mat!" She yelled, stomping on it.

So we all started up again, and me and Amu went on medium. But I actually ended up winning, because halfway through the session Iru and Yoru set the kitchen on fire, and she had to go put it out with the garden hose.

"Nice, Rima," said Nagihiko, grinning evilly again.

"You're up to something again because you're giving me that sick grin," I told him.

"That's because I'm playing winner... remember?"

**Nagihiko: 5,000 Rima: 0**

Oh, crap.

He slid off the couch. Conveniently, he was the control mat. Great. "why are you choosing that song?" I yelled at him.

"I like that song."

"it SUCKS!"

"aw, Mashiro, now you sound like Kyo from _Maniac Diaries_, that fanfiction."

"and-" he selected DIFFICULT. "YOU IDIOT! I CAN'T PLAY DIFFICULT!"

"But I can," he said innocently.

"**I can't!" Kichii piped up again, only to be ignored by the two bickering teenagers.**

Then the arrows starting moving at the speed of light. "DAMMIT! I can't do this! WHY, FUJISAKI, WHYYY?"

"because it's so, so, so fun annoying the hell out of you."

3 minutes and 42 seconds later.

The narrator guy on DDR said, "Player A: Pass! Rock it, dude! Player B: FAILLLLL. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME! HAW, HAW, HAW."

"He's laughing at me!" I cried.

**FAIL**

10:30 pm

UPDATES:

Ikuto's been sleeping for the past three hours. He's still not awake. He keeps muttering stuff like, "nya" and "fish" and "no baths" in his sleep.

"**SO KAWAII DESU!" The fangirls shrieked, killing everyone else with their horrible wapanese.**

Tadase is dipping Ikuto's hand in warm water. I dunno if that's worked yet.

Yaya is getting really sleepy, but kind of excited. "I've never been up until ten before!" she keeps telling us.

Kukai is chucking a bouncy ball against the ceiling.

Kairi has been reading a big fat medical book for the past hour.

**This guy must be my brother.**

Utau is going against Nagihiko in Karaoke. They're tied right now, as Nagihiko can actually sing. Utau tried to make me, but I refused flatly. No matter what song I sing, I always sound like a little kid singing a nursery rhyme to mommy. And I'm not giving Nagihiko any more ammunition than he needs for little-kid jokes.

**But can you still get half-price at restaurants from being under twelve like me?**

Amu is watching Ikuto sleep. Her eyes are kind of glazed over.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Amu ran to get it, and Ikuto twitched in his sleep. Then he muttered the word, "tuna," under his breath.

"Hello?" she said. "what? Ami?"

"**I think I killed someone."**

She listened for a long time. Her eyes widened. "No. it's way too early."

"Amu?" I ran up to her. "what is it?" She held up a finger. "OK. Yes. Don't worry. What? Oh. Just keep it in your sweatshirt pocket. NO! don't tell mom and dad!"

She turned to me. "Ami just got a Chara egg. In the middle of dinner."

"how old is she now?" I asked.

"nine and a half."

"well, I got mine when I was ten." I reasoned. "you got yours when you were eleven."

Nagihiko stuck his head into the kitchen. "Are you taking about girl stuff? Because it sure sounds that wa-"

"NO!" we both yelled back at him.

Fifteen minutes later

The doorbell rang, and I ran to get it. there was Ami, clutching a little pinstriped pink-and-white egg in her hands.

"AMU!" I yelled, and her and – big surprise – Nagihiko both came running.

"Waaah!" shrieked Amu, totally freaking out and flapping her arms maniacally. "You came here all by yourself? How did mom and dad let you go?"

"I snuck," said Ami, looking very pleased with herself.

"what desire was this born from, incidentally?" I asked Ami.

She looked worried. "I don't know. I don't know!" she looked all panicky now, too. "am I supposed to know?"

"NO!" we all said at the same time, making us all snort.

**SNNNNOOOOOORT**

She turned the egg a little, and then I saw a red music note on the front. I didn't know which one, as I was just stupid that way. It was the note with the two little circles.

**An eighth note.**

"an eighth note..." **See? **started Nagihiko, like he could read my mind (oh god, what if he can? That would be scary).

**But he can, RiRi-Tan. And he sees all your scary little fantasies about him.**

"...because she wants to sing..." I continued.

"...better, instead of the crappy singer she is right now," finished Amu, grinning.

"I can sing fine!" shrieked Ami.

Later

Ami went downstairs with Yaya and Kukai as her reluctant babysitters, to play with the other charas. I checked in on them awhile ago. Ami and Yaya are playing a board game, and all the other charas are talking to the egg. "hatch!" they're all telling it. "come on! Hurry up! Music-san? Heloooo?"

**Why do I feel like Ami's chara will hate all the others for bothering it?**

11:00

I went back up, to be greeted by Ikuto prowling the upper stairs. "what are you doing?" I asked him.

"Shhhhh. Hunting mice." He's character-changed to get cat ears, and his eyes are glowing in the dark. Creepy.

…**Poor, poor rodents…**

Then I went back up to the living room, to be greeted by Utau holding up a movie. "it's THE UNLIVING. It's X-rated for it's scariness. LET'S WATCH THIS ONE!"

"**Okay!" Kichii shrieked, being the horror-fanatic she was. Unfortunately, she appeared to be invisible, as no one else seemed to notice her.**

Nagihiko was all, "no way. THE UNWANTED owns! It's a horror classic!" and they were yelling back and forth, with Tadase, Kairi, and Amu hiding in the corners of the room.

"horror movies?" I asked, and Tadase grimaced. "Fujisaki and Hoshina-san are getting kinna scary."

Kukai went up to join us, and threw his vote towards THE UNLIVING, so Utau's putting it in...

1 hour and 20 minutes later

OH MY GOD.

I'm so, so, so, SO times a billion scared. This is the most gory, horrific, frightening and disgusting movie I've ever had to watch. I've had to leave twice. I am not going to sleep tonight! I'll wedge myself between Amu and Yaya and read happy, cheerful comic books.

**Pansy.**

Ikuto walked in a moment ago, and is all like to Utau, "This? Scary? My god."

He tried to watch for a minute, then yawned widely and went back up the stairs, muttering, "hmmm. I see yet another mouse hole."

**Truth is, he was scared as hell.**

How can he not be scared? **HE WAS. **I'm doing my best not to shake at all. Some guy is sticking a needle in his eye. Ewww. Ewww. Oh, my god. Ewww.

**Cool, cool, oh my god cool.**

Amu ran up to her room. She totally forgot Ikuto's upstairs, eating mice.

**.**

Have fun, Amu.

2 hours and 10 minutes later (this movie just won't end!)

Tadase and Kairi are doing a funny experiment in the kitchen involving gunpowder that might be qualified as baking pastry.

**Kichii was helping.**

Whatever their creation is, I'm sure as hell not taste-testing it.

15 minutes later

So it was only Utau, me, and Nagihiko watching the movie, if you're still keeping tack (who is "you"? haa. That sounds funny.)

**I'LL TELL YOU WHO I AM-!**

Nagihiko ended up right next to me. Which was kind of scary, because I could HEAR him BREATHING. AAHHHHHH!

Anyway, we were in the final stages of the movie. Which was where the mad killer was KILLING OFF THE ENTIRE WORLD! He kept banging this guys head against the wall, and little bits of skull kept falling to the ground...

**Kellog's SKULL FLAKES. They're… Demented…**

And then my body acted totally involuntarily and shuddered. Why do I shake when I'm scared? It's bloody stupid. And then OBVIOUSLY Nagihiko could feel me shaking like a broken toaster oven (no, seriously. I owned this toaster oven once and I stuffed ten baked potatoes in it and it started shaking insanely).

**To Do List: Attempt to murder toaster oven by stuffing baked potatoes in it.**

"Are you scared, Rima?" he said incredulously.

**Naw!**

"N-n-n-no!" I whispered through chattering teeth.

"it's either that or you're cold, and the heat's at twenty-three," he retorted. **Ok, so in the U.S., we use F, so 23 would be EFFIN COLD. But CANADIAN WRITER USES CELCIUS SO YEAH **And then he did something really scary again. He took my hand and gripped it really hard. "it's fine. Honestly. It's nearly over."

**Aw. He's so cute and comforting that she's just dying to kill him. Literally.**

He watched for about thirty more seconds, and then let go of my hand and snatched the remote. To my utter relief, he pressed the STOP button. I exhaled in relief.

I looked over at Utau, wondering if she had missed anything, but she was asleep. Which pretty much meant...

NO.

**YES.**

Nagihiko and I were ALONE? With not even Amu (who, by the way, was still upstairs. I wonder if she's found Ikuto yet? Probably. I heard her shriek about ten minutes ago) to keep us company? Oh, god. Scary.

And then I found myself whispering, "I met your sister the other day."

"I know-" he said, and then stopped himself.

**OH SHEET.**

"what?" I said, getting a bit louder. "How?"

"Uhhhh... duh, she told me."

"she seems nicer than you."

He grinned. "that's interesting."

**THAT'S VERY INTERESTING.**

"how?"

"you wouldn't understand."

"what? Because I don't speak Japanese?"

**SO KAWAII DESUUUUU—Oh wait, JAPANESE. Not wapanese? Damn.**

"No. for you to understand it would take a lot of explaining. And I don't want to explain. And if I do, you'll get pissed. Urgh!" he tilted his head up in frustration. "I've already told you way too much."

"I'll g-get pissed? Damn straight!" I hissed. My teeth still were chattering a little, and he noticed. "You're still scared, aren't you?"

**Yes—scared of being in a room alone with you, with no witnesses if you turn into a pedophile and—nevermind.**

"N-no! tell me!"

He sighed. "I promise I will tell you. Just not NOW. Okay?" and then he muttered under his breath, "I don't have that much time left, anyway."

**I'M DYING.**

"Time until what?"

**I DIE.**

"Until the time Amu murders m- never you mind."

**BECAUSE AMU'S GOING TO KILL M—NEVER YOU MIND.**

"Until the time Amu murders who? WHO?" I got really louder, almost at a normal volume now, and he clapped his hand over my mouth. "please don't tell Amu-chan, ok?"

I tried to gasp, except I couldn't because his hand was still over my mouth. I knew that sentence! I had heard it somewhere! But I don't remember.

"Eh, I'm walking home with Tadase and Kairi. I better get them. Tell Amu I left, all right?"

And then he – you guessed it – disappeared. About five minutes later, I heard the door shut, and that's all I heard from Nagihiko Fujisaki for the rest of the night.

**Except for the creepy fantasies and dreams, but… you don't need to know that.**


	8. Her Small Happy Smile

This Diary Belongs to Nagihiko Fujisaki. KEEP OUT! THAT MEANS YOU, MOM! 

**Mothers like to read their children's crap. I would know.**

Saturday, May 5th

I totally almost gave away my secret last night at Amu's party. Dangit! If only Rima had any idea this insane... control... she has over me.

**Ikuto's the one with the mind control issues, not you.**

But she doesn't.

Which is GOOD.

But it's only a matter of time before she figures out how I really feel about her and then starts using that to her advantage.

**Manipewlashun. Or at least, that's how RiRi would spell it.**

...

Oh, god. That made frighteningly pleasing images run through my head.

**Good to know.**

Would it really be so bad to tell her? And make her not tell Amu? It could be our little secret, some little thing we could have in common that wasn't I-hate-you-you-hate-me-let's-go-out-and-kill-Barney.

**Yur singin' it wrong.**

No way. She would totally tell Amu. And I didn't hate her for that at all. What's wrong with me?

If I was stupid enough to ask my mother, she would say, "Ohhhh, isn't it obvious? You're lovesick and forever dwelling on a girl who will never return your affections. Isn't that so tragic and romantic? Sighhhh..." and then she would give me another one of her books explaining hormones.

**My mother's just like I DON'T CARE GO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE I'M WATCHING DEPRESSING TV SHOWS.**

And the sad thing? Yeah, she's totally right. I am LOVESICK, like in those scary chick flicks. If I could pinpoint when exactly I fell in love (that word scares me. My mother says it's because men hate commitment like love. Did I mention my mother's a cynical feminist?) it would be... yeah. The minute I walked into the royal garden four years ago. She had taken her guardian cape off, and was sitting next to Amu. Laughing. As soon as she saw me, though, the small happy smile disappeared and turned to interest at the new Jack.

Then it turned to hate.

And made me miserable.

***PATPAT***

After about two years of putting up with the don't-come-near-Amu-crap, I took a new approach. The, Ha-ha-we're-in-a-love-hate-relationship approach. She starting becoming gradually more flustered and irritated. My best victory moments was when I pushed her so hard she blushed. That's when she whipped out her little orange-bound diary and started writing furiously, every now and then crossing out words due to her horribleness at spelling, a little frown on her face. But she still hated me. I could tell, after being particularly teasing, she'd take out the little book, start tearing holes in the paper, and keep asking me how to spell my name.

**Because someone like Rima has to hear the proper spelling of something five hundred times for it to stick.**

Unlike most people, who would find this probably annoying, I found it ridiculously cute.

I have serious issues, don't I?

**Yes.**

Anyway, I started wondering how she treated people she DIDN'T hate. And that's when I took advantage of Nadeshiko. At first, I was totally shocked that she could tell it was me, at first. But all it took was a bit of lying, and she warmed up to me. **That's a BAD thing, Nagihiko. **What is it about girls automatically *connecting* to each other like that? It was the exact same with Amu. And when the conversation turned to Temari, it was like she understood. And, to my horror, after that particular episode, after seeing that side of her, it made me fall even more uncontrollably into the trap I had already set up for myself. Made this unbelievable want increase further. And so, to make sure I don't do anything stupid, I have to tell someone.

The only guy who would get this would be... Hotori? Gah. He's the only guy who can talk about lovey-dovey feelings without sounding gay (which he already is, but still).

**TRUFAX, YO.**

Later

So I called Hotori, and he ran over right away. "Is something wrong, Fujisaki-san?" he asked, all worried.

"No," I lied. "I just need to tell you something." So we started off, walking down side streets where I knew we wouldn't be overheard. I took a deep breath, and said it rather bluntly. "I-I-think I'm in love with Mashiro."

**Duh.**

He was silent for a minute, and then muttered something. "Duh."

"WHAT?"

**Duh.**

"duh."

"what do you mean, Duh?"

**Duh, he means "duh," duh.**

"about time you got that off your chest. I was wondering how long it would take you."

"you KNEW?"

**Duh.**

"it's pretty obvious to everyone except Yaya and the girl in question," said Hotori, fighting back a smile. "love, huh? That's getting into serious territory."

"I know," I groaned.

"well, at least you're admitting it, instead of fighting it back like poor Mashiro," said Hotori, going all sage.

"fighting it..." I almost tripped as it hit me. "what? Fighting.. it... back?"

He looked at me, all *serious*. "it started out jealousy, but after a time I could tell she was getting bored with it. she had two paths: friendship or the unknown field she's never walked. She made a dangerous decision."

**The yellow brick road?**

Something flipped over in my stomach, and I had a sudden urge to get up and shout in triumph. _She likes me. Maybe. Maybe. Don't get too hopeful. _

Hotori gave a tiny smile, and then went on. "the other day, she ran away to the royal garden. Remember, I told you? anyway, she had been sleeping. And she was muttering something like, 'talk more with Amu-chan and maybe even Nagi.'"

She called me Nagi. In her sleep. Damn, I wish I could've heard my nickname come out her mouth like that in her cute little voice.

**RAAAAAAPIIIIIIIST**

So now Hotori knows, and has agreed to keep me from doing anything 'stupid'. And I have made a decision that will either make or ruin my life.

I will get Rima Mashiro.

No matter what it takes.

**Because… I AM JACOB BLACK.**


	9. His Homemaking Skillz

Rima's Diary~~~Bala-balance! RiRi pwns! Don't you dare read if you value your life.

**Apparently, I am suicidal.**

Monday

It was about half an hour before school started, so all the "Guardians" were hanging out. I walked in, and then Nagihiko immediately turned his head towards me. And I felt like one of those deer caught in headlights, because he was putting those big, soft, innocent (yeah, right) eyes on me. And then, without warning, I felt all the blood rush to my face.

He smirked. "I see Mashiro is ready to blush, as always."

"I'm not blushing!" I snapped.

**Don't worry, RiRi. Your best friend will stand up for you!**

"Yeah, you are," said Amu mildly. "you look like a chibi tomato."

**I stand corrected.**

"chibi tomato," Nagihiko teased.

"Thanks, Amu," I said as I sat down. "so, what were we talking about?"

"I was talking about how I want more sun!" complained Yaya. She had taken to actually using "watashi" instead of speaking in third person lately, and kept her hair down almost all the time. In fact, she had become almost unrecognizable now. Anyway, she continued. "LET'S ALL GO TO THE BEACH! Even you, Nagi-kun. You're so pale."

He fake-winced. "that hurts, Yaya-chan. I happen to like my pale skin. It makes me look like Edward Cullen."

**Because real men sparkle—and crossdress.**

"If Edward Cullen was evil and had hair like a girls'," I muttered under my breath, and Amu laughed.

"you're pale too, Rima-tan!" said Yaya, turning and inspecting me.

"It's because I'm blonde!"

"we all know you bleach your hair, Ri-ri," said Nagihiko, inspecting his nails.

"this is my _natural_ colour! I'll have you know I have a Norwegian grandmother..."

**So she's a Norwegian-Japanese girl with a Canadian dialect?**

"don't worry," he said, surveying me and his gears whirring in his brain again. "it just makes you look even more like a grade-school aged doll who's never seen the light of day... hmmm, good novel idea."

"I swear to god, one day I will really slip poison into your bento or something..."

"good luck, Master of Disguise."

"You bicker like an old couple," observed Kukai, making us shut up and shoot daggers at each other from either sides of Amu.

"LISTEN TO ME!" yelled Yaya. "anyway... On Saturday it's a nice day. WE ARE GOING TO THE BEACH THIS WEEKEND! NYAHAHAHAHA!"

"I don't have a bathing suit," I whined.

"go without one," suggested Amu.

"I wouldn't mind seeing that," volunteered Nagihiko.

**I'm sure you wouldn't.**

"we all don't care about your two-cents-worth. When did you turn into such a Tsukiyomi Ikuto?"

"Not another one!" (this was Tadase and Amu)

And the bickering started all over again.

Later

We had an assembly at the start of school. Our little chubby principal waddled onto the stage and said into his little microphone, "Hello, children. Or should I say... _yo_."

**I hate it when old people try to be "hip".**

We all groaned.

**Apparently, so do they.**

"as you know, today is Homemaker Day."

"what?" I hissed to the boy in front of me, and he said, "Shhhhh!"

"Don't you start on her!" snapped Nagihiko, but Mr. Chubbily-wad (this isn't his real name. I made it up because it sounds funny) kept ploughing on with his speech.

**Chubbily-wad…. Heh.**

"Homemaker Day is the Day when you decide that, 'Hey, isn't toDay a Day as good as any Day to sharpen your housewife Skillz?"

**SKILLAGE.**

"Is he kidding?" said Amu, a shocked look on her face (she had gotten a D in Home Ec. last semester. I wasn't too happy at this news either, as I had gotten an F).

"so Homemaker Day is really a Day – well, actually a week –" all the students groaned in unison again. "When all your normal Day subjects are cancelled. Instead, you will go around and do all sorts of Homemaker Skillz, such as Textiles, Food Studies, and Family Planning."

"Family Planning?" I said, aghast. "I don't want children."

"Not even cute, dark-haired children with big innocent brown eyes?" asked Nagihiko.

"your eyes are anything but innocent," I mumbled.

**Of course she'd relate to HIM rather than some other kid with dark hair and big innocent brown eyes.**

First Period: Food Studies

Ugh. This is going to totally suck.

We're making pudding. What? Pudding? When we're living alone in our bachelor pads, YEAH! we are totally going to have to make pudding.

**GREEN pudding? Because Travis Willingham apparently—nevermind…**

Also anchovy pizza. Who puts fish on their pizza? Gross.

**Ikuto.**

Would you like to hear my Cooking Group? Ahahaha. Of course you would.

Yaya and THE EVIL MAD GENIUS.

I'm so dead.

Later

The cooking teacher gave us a lovely can full of... DEAD ANCHOVY. AHHHH!

Nagihiko was busy stirring the pudding, which right now looks like crap boiled over.

Yaya keeps sneaking in sugar when Nagihiko's not looking (which she does often. He's a total space cadet! Or maybe he just knows he'll get A's no matter what...).

**It's the second one.**

"Ewww!" said Yaya, looking at the dead anchovies. "the dead fish want to eat Yaya! You handle them, Rima-taaaan!"

**Don't worry—the pervy cat will eat the dead fish before the dead fish can eat Yaya.**

"I don't want to handle them, either!" I said, looking at their blank, unstaring eyes. "just pick them up. They're not going to kill you."

I suddenly saw a twitch of dark blue hair at the side of the window. _Could it be?_ I thought, smiling to myself.

**COULD IT BE-? VIC…. MIGNOGNA?**

"why are you smiling at the dead fish, Ri-Ri-tan?" asked Nagihiko (when he was looking at me, Yaya dumped more sugar into the pot of pudding).

"I'm not. Uhhhh," I said, looking over at the ingredients over by the window, "It says we need tomato sauce. I'm going to go get some. Okay? Guard the pudding so Yaya doesn't sneak in another spoonful of sugar."

While Nagihiko was lecturing Yaya on how you should never put more sugar then necessary in crap-boiled-over, I ran over to the window and yanked it open.

"You _pervert,_" I hissed at Ikuto. "spying on Amu-chan. And skipping university classes to do so."

"Ehheh," he gave me an evil grin. "I'm taking night classes to fit my nocturnal schedule. So you can't pull that string. Besides, I smell fish."

Then I got a flash of brilliance! I stole the Dead Anchovy and gave the whole tin to Ikuto.

**Point made.**

"gee, free food from the coldhearted demon," smirked Ikuto. "I guess that's a bribe to go away. Right?"

"right."

**Right.**

And he jumped off the (second-floor) window, jumped on and off a teacher's car (the car alarm went off) and was gone down an alleyway before anyone could go, "hey, kid! I hope you're gonna pay for that automobile damage!"

Later

Family Studies. Oh, crap.

Me and Amu were playing a game of Tic-Tac-Toe on the side of my binder, when the (crazy homicidal) teacher shrieked, "MA-SHI-RO! Maybe YOOOUUUU can tell us what happens when you have unprotected sex!"

**Nagihiko has to pay child support.**

I kind of stared blankly at her for a minute, and I could hear the Evil Mad Genius chuckling behind me.

"... You get ADHD. Right?"

**Right. Then what's MY excuse?**

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" said the teacher, her eyes bulging maniacally. "THAT'S WROOOOOOOOONGGG! YOU GET STDs, YOU SILLY GIRL, NOT ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVE DISORDER!"

"or," she said, her voice going insanely high and shrieky, "you get pregnant! And that's TERRIBLLLLEEE!" her voice went even higher so it was bordering on opera.

**My teacher's like that.**

"Fujisaki!" she said, leering quite unpleasantly, "what happens when you get pregnant?"

"You become famous for being the first man to give birth?" guessed Nagihiko.

**EXACTLY.**

"I MEAN FOR WOMEN!" screamed the teacher. "HINAMOOOOORIIIII?"

"Uhhhh... OH!" she said, actually waking up. "well... err..." she quickly assumed her 'cool and spicy' attitude. "why would you get pregnant? That's really stupid." Her fangirls nodded in agreement.

**Yeah, cause it's like, totally stupid to populate the earth. Let's just let the human race die out, shall we?**

While the teacher ranted and raved about how it increased your chance by .00000000000123 % of having a two-headed baby or whatever, Nagihiko started laughing behind his hand.

"what's so funny?" asked Kukai.

He mumbled, "ADHD," and kept laughing.

"NOW!" said the teacher. "I'M GIVING YOU AND YOUR PARTNER A CHILD TO RAISE FOR THE NEXT WEEK!" she held up an egg.

"that's not a child!" said Kukai indignantly.

**What do you mean? The teacher laid that egg herself!**

"SHUT UP, SOMA!" the teacher screamed, and he shut up.

She blathered off some names. Then I heard her mutter 'eenie-miney-mo' and scream, "HINAMORI AND TADASE!"

"Waaaaahh!" mourned all the Prince fangirls.

"SIIIILENCCEEE!" the teacher yelled and it was silent.

"we can still hope for Fujisaki-kun," one of them said eagerly, and I had a sudden urge to punch them in the face.

**Over protective girlfriend, much?**

Am I getting homicidal?

**Yes.**

"**Stop answering all my r-r… rit…or…ikul… questions, you!" I screeched.**

"**That's **_**rhetorical, **_**Rima," Nagihiko whispered.**

"**Shut up."**

"_it-skit-you-are-it_" I heard her mutter, running her finger up the register. "SOMA NAD YUIKI!"

**Nad. Hurhur.**

Yaya went red. "I'm still a kid! How can I raise one myself?"

"play with it and feed it lollipops," suggested Kukai vaguely, and she cheered up immediately. "Yaya will feed it lollipops every day... Muahahahaha..." she said, her eyes crackling with chibi-fire.

I was so busy listening to the lollipop-conversation that I jumped when she said the dreaded words (after running her finger up and down the register with her eyes closed):

"MASHIRO AND FUJISAKI."

NOOOOO! NO! NO! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING! THIS IS A HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE I'M GOING TO WAKE UP FROM!

**No it isn't.**

"wake up," I told myself, but all that happened was some guy looked at me weirdly because I was talking to myself.

"stop looking at her or I kill you," I heard Nagihiko mutter menacingly. Why?

Weird.

Anyway, she gave me the egg and said loudly, "I WANT LOVING, HAPPY COUPLES AND NO FEUDING. DIVORCE IS NOT ALLOWED!"

**There goes plan B.**

"what do you mean, divorce is not allowed?" I asked, looking at her in horror. "what if you don't like the person you're paired with?"

"OOOOHH, YOU HORRIBLE GIRL! HOW COULD YOU THINK OF ABANDONING YOUR CHILD? OH, HOW FRIIIIGHHHTFULLLL!"

So I shut up.

"what a happy, loving couple we are," said Nagihiko serenely from behind me.

Oh, I'm going to go crazy one of these days.

"I'm going to name egg-chan Suki!" said Yaya excitedly.

"what? We have to name it?" I asked.

**A combination of your names for the fangirls please.**

"yep!" said Nagihiko, trying to fight back laughter now. "what should we name it?"

"Name it whatever the hell you want," I grumbled. "just run it through me first so that he doesn't end up with a name like Putrid."

He wrote down a whole bunch, and kept going through this serious process of eliminating them (with help form Amu and Kukai).

**FORM.**

"Ok, Ri-Ri-tan. We're left with two." He told me a while later. "Putrid and Riko."

"you can go ahead and eliminate Putrid."

"What? I like the name Putrid!" whined Kukai.

"we can name it Putrid if it starts to go bad and smell," I told him.

Amu laughed. "They'll all be like, 'God! What is that putrid smell?' and we'll be like, 'PUTRID!'" she laughed, fighting back tears.

So he handed the form back to the teacher. "OK!" she yelled. "THE NAMES ARE FINAL. NO CHANGING!"

"I guess this is a good time to tell you that 'Riko' is actually a combination of our own names," Nagihiko told me.

"**I KNEW IT!" Kichii screeched, and was, once again, ignored.**

"damn you!" I cursed.

"love you too, Ri-Ri-tan."


	10. His Sewing Skillz

Finishing the rest of what happened during Homemaker Week (oh horrors)

Ok, after the family planning disaster we had sewing. Guess what? I'm just about as good with a sewing machine as I am with a frying pan.

**Does that mean you hit Prussians with sewing machines?**

"Why don't you take our child first, Ri-Ri-tan?" asked Nagihiko.

"Stop calling it _our child!_" I hissed. "And because it hates my guts."

He snorted.

Textiles

So we're making tote bags. Tote bags are easy, right?

No. I can't even thread my sewing machine!

"The Pfaff HATES me!" I whined.

"It's not a Pfaff, it's a sewing machine," the teacher told me.

"but it says 'Pfaff' at the top so I'm naming it Pfaff."

The teacher gave up.

"Amu!" I cried. "I need help. The stupid needle isn't moving at all."

She tried moving the hand control. It didn't budge.

"oh. I don't know," she said, sounding very flustered. "why won't it move?"

**If she knew, do you really think she'd be asking you for help?**

"I don't know, either!."

**Point made.**

"Why don't you ask Nagi?" "Nagi" was – big surprise – already finished. Geez. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was a boy disguised as a girl.

**DERP DERP DERP.**

That would be really funny. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. That's what having a twin sister does to you!

_**DERP DERP DERP DERP DERP DERP**_

"Ri-Ri-tan, I see you're off in la-la land with that journal again. What the hell did you do to your machine?"

I gave him an evil look. "the thing is perfectly fine. Why don't you go back to your wife, the Pfaff 1548?"

"very funny. Would you like to see what's wrong with your sewing machine?"

"NO."

But he did anyway. He pressed some fiddly diddly button that only a watchmaker would know about and opened up the compartment where the thread below was. It was a mess. It looked totally like a kajillion drunk spiders had gotten in there and started weaving up a storm.

**How do you GET a spider drunk to begin with?**

"ha!" he laughed rather humorlessly. "yes. Your machine is just fine."

"really?"

"sarcasm."

I took us both fifteen minutes to untangle the mess. (us = Nagihiko does all the work and I sit there and make "helpful" comments).

"Okay," he sighed. "because we only have forty-five minutes left, I'm going to have to help you."

"Oh, no! I'm sure you'd rather be slacking off."

And then, to my utter horror, he put his hands on top of mine and started moving them. "Rima. Stop putting your hands there."

"why?"

"there right in the way of the needle. Didn't you know that?"

**Yes, she did. She wants your hands to get sewn to hers so you can be together forever and—wtf….**

"no."

He moved them back, and I felt really really sick.

"put your foot on the pedal."

"what? What pedal?"

It was a long, long, long textiles class.

Family Planning

"MAAAAAAAASHIIIIIIROOOO!" yelled Mrs. Psycho. "HOW HAS YOUR PARENTING BEEN GOING?"

"ish."

"ISH IS NOOOOOTT A WOOOORRDDD! OH, HOW FRRIIIIIGHHTTTFULLL!"

"well, we've had some custody issues."

"IT'S JOINT CUSTODY, YOU BAKA, BAKA GIRL! YOU HAVE NO CHOICE! "

"er, not really. It's more I don't want to carry the egg around but I swear Fujisaki doesn't mind."

"HORRIBLLLEE! HORRIBLLLEE!" screamed Ms. Psycho, rocking back and forth in paroxysms of emotional instability (I stole that phrase off Nagihiko's English essay).

**What the hell was he WRITING about?**

"now," she said, her voice dropping dramatically low again. "TAAAAADAAAASEEEEE!" she screamed, her voice going up and down the scale dramatically. "WHAAATTT happens when a teenage mother TAKES DRUUUUGGSSS AND ALLLKOHOLLLLL?"

Thirty seconds later

Nagihiko tapped me on the shoulder. "Mashiro, you spelt alcohol wrong."

"screw you."

**I'm glad he pointed it out before I did. But he's ruining my job of MST-ing this story…**

ANYWAY, CONTINUING….

And Tadase kind of panicked. "…eh? Heh heh. Ummm… your baby ends up… retarded?"

**No, it get's ADHD.**

And then KusuKusu started laughing crazily. Obviously, no one could hear her, but the idiot character-changed with me so I started laughing too.

"MASHIIIROOOOO!" screamed Ms. Psycho, her eyes bulging so much I thought they might pop. Ewww. I could see all the veins, too. "WHAAATTT IIIS SOOO FANNYYYYY?"

"you mean funny?" asked Amu.

"THAT'S WHAT I SAAIIID! FAAANNYYYY!"

"Rima-tan has never heard Tadase say 'retarded!'" I said through giggles.

"you just spoke in third person," Yaya pointed out, just in time for the green stars to go *poof* off my cheeks.

"very funny," I said through gritted teeth.

**Very fanny.**

The bell rang just then, and we all ran out. And then, what to our horrified eyes should appear but Yamabuki Saaya and a bunch of other girls clustered around the notice board.

That can't mean anything good.


	11. His Corrections to my Spelling

Friday

Family Studies

FINALLY! We can ditch stupid Riko. As soon as Mrs. Psycho scribbled what suspiciously looked like a D in her marking book, Nagihiko handed it to me. "You can do the honors, Rima."

**It couldn't have been a D—Nagi was in on the project.**

And then I threw Riko against the wall, and Riko exploded and got egg all over the floor. Man! And did it ever feel good. Ha ha, Riko!

Then suddenly this girl walked in with long, orange hair. "mom," she said, "you forgot your lunch." I expected Ms. Psycho to scream her head off at this girl, but instead she went, "Ohhhh, thank you, Ritsu-kun."

"Kun?" I asked her.

"yes," said Ms. Psycho stiffly. "Ritsu is my son."

"A cross dressing-son."

**A cross-dressing boyfriend.**

Wrong thing to say.

She yelled at me for half an hour, and now I have a detention.

**What is with these overly-screwed-up teachers?**

Lunchtime

Good (or maybe bad) news: Ami's egg hatched! Luckily, it was when she was sitting with us at the high school for lunch, as it's fairly close to Seiyo Elementary.

She just suddenly shrieked, "I feel a thing in my pocket shaking!"

"get it!" said Tadase.

**I seriously am about to go insane—I've ignored it for ten chapters but FOR GOD SAKES START CAPITALIZING THE BEGINNINGS OF YOUR EFFING DIALOGUE!**

"get what?" said Ami, getting more and more panicked.

"the egg, stupid!" said Amu.

Ami dove for the pocket of her backpack and retrieved the little pink-and-white egg, and it was then that there was a big explosion and a little orange-haired Chara appeared. It then began to squeak in delight. "arigato, Ami-chaaan! It was getting really cramped in there! My name is Pitchi."

Amu suddenly said, "WATCH OUT, Ami! She might want to do a character cha-"

But at that moment Pitchi yawned widely, and then she was all, "O-K, Ami-chii. Let's try a character change, NEEE?" before Ami (or anyone) could get a word in edgewise, Ami's hairclip changed into a music note. And then Ami started to sing, "Meikyu Butterfly". Except it was REALLY, REALLY GOOD (rather than her usual amount of talent, which was quite crappy). We were all quite amazed.

**LIKE OH MAH GEE SHE'S SO GOOD IT'S SO SPESHULLLLL**

Then Ami changed back, and prodded Pitchi back into her egg. "No more character changes without express permission from Ami. Ne?"

"Ne," came the muffled reply.

**NEEEEEEEE**

After School

My mom was in a good mood Friday. She was humming and making waffles. Actually, it might have been because my dad was in Osaka that day on a business trip, but whatever. I took advantage of that and asked her if we could go out and get me a bathing suit.

"you can just borrow one of mine!" she said breezily, and then took a hasty look at me. "Oh, I guess not. You're still too flat as a board to fit into mine."

"thanks."

"oh, you'll grow, honey!"

When was the last time she called me _honey_?

"so… can we get one?"

"okay! I know this really cute store –"

"mom. No ruffles. No bikinis. Get one and I kill you."

She sighed, disappointed.

Saturday

Okay. That good mood didn't last very long, as that night "they" (who are most definitely not my mother and father) had a humongous fight again.

But at least I got my swimsuit! It's orange and red… KusuKusu made me choose it because that way I can match her.

Amu's car

Thank god I was able to get a ride with Amu, because no way in hell am I going to let my mother behind the wheel with steam gushing out of her ears and let her drive me all the way to the beach.

**SCAREH MOTHER IS SCAREH**

Sadly, Evil Mad Genius conveniently has to carpul with us too.

30 seconds later

The Evil Mad Genius so kindly tells me it's spelled _carpool_.

"will you stop reading my diary?" I yelled at him.

"why? Is there anything in there you don't want me to see?"

"damn straight, yeah!"

"you're starting to talk with a Nagoya accent like Lulu," observed Amu. Nagihiko pressed on. "and what would be in there? How much I piss you off? Because I know that." Evil grin. Brain gears whirring. "of course, what you really want to hide from me is how you write about me in that thing late at night, like a lovesick teenager in the movies…"

**PLEASE start a new paragraph when the speaker switches… It kills my mind.**

"shut up!"

"you only say that when I'm telling the truth, right?"

I showed him a page at random (which probably wasn't wise but…). "see? Ha-ha! No stupid lovesick writing."

A crease formed between his eyebrows. "you're parents fight?"

"what? No!" I quickly shut it closed. "the point is… I don't like you. HA!"

"you sound almost happy," he commented, but he was silent the rest of the way.

At the beach. Ugggs;kdlf;asd;fs

**More pencilsmashing.**

Amu and Yaya and everyone except me and Tadase have gone swimming. In the OCEAN. Don't they know how much bacteria and other gross stuff like _e. coli_ flourish in seawater? And it must be FREEZING.

"no swimming for the blondes, then?" asked Kukai.

"it's not because we're blond!" whined Tadase. "I'm allergic to salt water."

"liar," I said. "you went to Hawaii a couple years ago and went swimming... remember?"

"oh..."

"what's your excuse, Rima?" demanded Amu. "the water's fine."

"I don't like swimming."

"now that I think about it, you never go swimming," commented Yaya. "Rima-tan is like a kitty!"

"you don't know how to swim, do you, Mashiro?" asked Nagihiko, who had been eavesdropping.

"THAT'S NOT IT AT ALL!"

"do you deny it?"

I was silent.

"that means yes," whispered Nagihiko conspiratorially.

"well, here's how _I _learned to swim," said Amu and, without any forewarning, picked me up and threw me into the ocean! NASTIII! On instinct I started kicking, and Amu said, "SEE? SHE'S SWIMMING!" all *triumphant*.

Tadase went to sleep.

12:30

Amu declared a "splash fight".

"what's that?" asked Yaya, and I splashed her. "duh."

"that was meeeean, Rima-taaan!"

**God forbid OOC Rima-Tan be "mean".**

And thus, a fight broke up. While I was fighting with Yaya, Nagihiko doused me from behind .

**A fight broke OUT, you mean?**

"pffffft!" he started laughing. "that was totally worth it just to see your face!"

"YOU'RE SO DEAD, FUJISAKI!"

And, sadly, he pwned me. Boo.

30 seconds later

Nagihiko so kindly tells me that 'pwned' is not a word.

**But we use it anyway.**

Lunchtime 

NOOO! A TERRIBLE THING HAPPNEED!

I was just eating my lunch like a kind, caring civilian when

30 seconds later

Nagihiko says, "you aren't kind and caring, Mashiro. If anything, don't lie to your diary."

ANYWAY, CARRYING ON...

ANYWAY, I was just eating my lunch like a rather mean and nasty civilian when a seagull swooped down and stole by lunch!

**IT STOLE HER LUNCH!**

"IT STOLE MY LUNCH!" I yelled in a high-pitched voice.

"very good... did you figure that out all by yourself?" asked Nagihiko mildly.

"shut up."

The seagull made a funny noise.

"IT'S LAUGHING AT ME!" I yelled, horrified.

"who doesn't laugh at you?"

"keep your little witty comments to yourself, Fujisaki."

Amu and KusuKusu started laughing then, and I turned around to look at them.

"KusuKusu!" I suddenly snapped. "come here."

She floated over.

I put her in my hand, and then I realized it must be true. She was lighter than she usually was. And her face was more washed-out.

I screwed up my face really tight, knowing what I had to do.

"Ehheh... Mashiro-san, you don't have to cry over a bit of lunch," said Tadase.

"no... no. that's not it."

There was a bit of silence as I kind of sat there for a minute, thinking with KusuKusu sitting in my hand.

"Nagihiko," I said quietly.

He actually turned around in the other direction first, thinking it was somebody else. Then, he slowly turned around.

"what is it, Rima?"

I didn't bother correcting him this time.

"do you know what happened when Temari started to fade?"

Amu choked on her drink, Yaya stifled a shriek and Tadase quickly turned his face in the other direction so we couldn't see his face.

He paused for a minute and then said, "she started getting sick. But why..."

"how sick?" I interrupted. My voice was kind of high again. Scary.

"well, she started losing weight, and got kind of pale..."

I spoke to KusuKusu sharply, cutting him off again. "WHY?"

She squeaked, a little fainter, "I don't know. I don't know. _Help_, Rima-tan!"

"no!" I said, really loudly, not caring that anyone was watching. "You're _not_ going to disappear. Okay?"

**CAPITALIZATION PLEAS—YOU KNOW WHAT FORGET IT.**

"no, no, Rima-chan. You don't understand."

"explain, then!"

"this is going to happen to you all eventually."

"_Us?_ _You're _the one who's disappearing!"

"Rima-chan... the same thing will probably happen soon to Yoru and Miki-chan."

"what? No!" exploded Amu.

"maybe it's just my time." Her eyes were kind of sad, and she got slightly lighter.

I felt hands brush mine, and I saw Nagihiko lift KusuKusu out of my hand. "Do you know if it's happening to Kairi, too?"

"Has been for a while," she replied.

"wait!" I snapped. "why am I the only one who doesn't know what's going on?"

Amu laughed nervously. "I think Nagi's the only one who knows what's going on."

Nagihiko was still talking with my Chara. I heard him say in a low voice, "but why Rima?"

"You already have that answer."

Then he turned red.

**Love causes death, now?**

"Hey!" I snapped. "Break it up! KusuKusu needs to rest."

And that ended the incredibly worrying conversation. And by that time, the seagull had also ended my lunch.


	12. His Pale Skin is Put to Good Use

Monday

Wow! Great news! We are all being forced by Mr. Chubbily-wad, King of the Timetable, to drop one class and take up DRAMA.

**What better for the drama queen?**

At least I can drop accursed sewing. Yay!

Break

Amu, Nagihiko, and I were just walking around aimlessly in no direction at all through the hallways when we were confronted by Psycho Jr., a.k.a. Yamabuki Saaya.

**You had to be walking in SOME direction, RiRi-Tan. Otherwise, you weren't moving.**

"HINAMORI AMU!" she shrieked. "I WILL BE WAITING IN DRAMA CLASS TO HAVE THE ULTIMATE THEATRE CONTEST!"

"She's in our drama class?" I told Amu. "Wow. Sucks to be you."

"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!" she laughed maniacally.

**Almost like a pyromaniacal Santa Claus.**

Drama class

While Amu was getting the mental guts beat out of her by Saaya in the corner, our Drama teacher Kanaka Nakamura was giving us this big talk.

"NO monkey business, no littering, no loitering, no spitting, no eating, no drinking, no talk-back-ing, and Oh Yeah, we're doing a school play and that's what this class is for."

**I almost expected "NO BREATHING" to be in that list.**

"What? We all said in unison.

"no, no, not What! We're actually doing Alice in Wonderland."

**There's a play called "What!"?**

"what? We all said again.

"don't you listen to me? **(No) **Now, I'm going to pick characters right now based on looks. I don't give a damn if you can act like a movie star but you don't look like the character at all. Got it?"

"yes."

"Good. YOU! the blonde kid in the back!"

Tadase woke up out of his doze. "what?"

"do you wanna play Alice?"

"I'm a guy!" said Tadase defensively.

"really? I couldn't tell. **None of us could. After all, he does have a "girl-voice". **Anyway, what other blonde people do we have to play Alice?"

I ducked my head.

"Aww, I see a little blond grade-schooler trying to hide from my hawk-eyes. You're Alice. Got it?"

"I don't want to be Alice!"

" RULE NUMBER SEVEN! NO TALK-BACK-ING!"

**Is that supposed to be "backtalking," or is the teacher dyslexic as well as psycho?**

"yes," I said meekly.

"are you any good at acting?"

"no."

(Nagihiko then snorted in the background).

She sighed. "Whatever. at least you're cute, blond, and little."

"I'm not little!"

**Mm-hm. You keep on telling yourself that. Oh, are you going to go get a fork? Because midgets with forks are always dangerous, remember?**

She purposely ignored me. Actually, it was at this moment she noticed Saaya mentally abusing Amu in the corner.

"Hinamori and Yamabuki! OVER HERE! La-di-dah, we should get you both out of the way and into roles."

"Nakamura-sensei scares me," murmured Yaya.

"No! Really?" muttered Kukai.

"SILENCE!" yelled Nakamura-sensei. "Now... the girl with the 'tude and the pinky-purple hair. FORWARD!"

**Pinky-purple? That's not even a color. And Amu's hair has no hint of the color purple at all… Maybe her kids' might if Nagi—nevermind, Rima's got a fork again and is glaring at me.**

Amu ran forward.

"it's Himamori, right?"

"uh, no. actually, it's Hina-

"I DON'T CARE! Nikaidou Yuu told me that's what it was. Huh. I see you look good in the colour red."

"uh, well, actually –

"WELL, since you look so good in red, we'll make you the Queen of Hearts. Yay! You get to execute people!"

**So does RiRi, whether it's in the play or not.**

Amu kind of stared at Nakamura-sensei blankly.

"Nakamura-sensei!" said Saaya really loudly and obnockshusly. (Nagihiko tells me it's, "obnoxious", but you get the idea.) "I want to be Alice!"

"and I want to be Empress of China," retorted Nakamura-sensei. "you're not blond. You can be the three of diamonds or the nine of spades. Which one?"

Then she turned around and caught all the ex-guardians talking. "Queen of Hearts, Alice, and nameless friends. STOP TALKING! So you're my problem kids, huh?"

"No, not-" Tadase began, but Naka-sensei shut him up with a look. The she caught Nagihiko laughing, and inspected him. HA! Maybe with luck she'll make him the duchess or something.

"you're really pale," was her only comment.

**He's Edward Cullen in disguise.**

"Not really," he said, laughing nervously.

"own a pocket watch?" she snapped at him.

"is that a rhetorical question?" he retorted.

**Is THAT a rhetorical question?**

Then she started laughing. "aren't you smart! Well, you seem pretty pale and all well-mannerly ("my ass," I muttered, but no one heard me), so I'll make you the White Rabbit! Yay!"

I'm having Doki! Flashbacks.

**Aren't we all… At least he won't have to wear fishnet tights.**

He looked kind of scared. "Oh, er, I wasn't really-"

She ignored him. "huzzah, and all that."

I gave him an evil grin, and he gave me a death glare. Interesting. He's turning into me what iwth all the death glares now.

**Iwth? Introducing Apple's latest product: the iWhatTheHell.**

Tadase was laughing with Amu about something (which was getting her evil looks from the Tadase fangirls) and Naka-sensei scuttled over. "Oooh! Are you two going out?"

"N-no!" said Amu nervously, and I noticed Ikuto grit his teeth behind a bush outside. _Creepy stalker,_ I thought, but smiled wryly to myself.

"you look really cute together! Just for that, Hotori-chan here can be the King of Hearts. Yay!"

They both went red, and I'm surprised Ikuto wasn't banging his head on the wall right now.

**He was—the walls of the school are thick so the outsiders can't hear the children being tormented. And the children can't hear cat-eared perverts banging their heads against the walls.**

She than made everyone else line up. After a particularly touching monologue about how Hinamori Amu was so, so, dead, Yamabuki Saaya got promoted to Duchess. One of her fangirls ended up the cook. When Yaya said, "nyah" she got randomly assigned the role of Cheshire Cat. And when Kukai fell asleep, he earned himself the part of the dormouse because he looked 'cute when he's sleeping'.

"The fangirls will totally go for that!" said Naka-sensei, flame burning maniacally in her eyes.

**Maniacal flames?**

Then she made me put a black ribbon in my hair. I used to when I was younger, but I had ditched the ribbon this year and started having a different hairstyle everyday, like ponytails and stuff. So it felt really weird to have a damn ribbon around my head again.

"Now say, 'curiouser and curiouser!" she ordered.

"curiouser and curiouser," I said in a bored voice.

"GOOODD!" she said. "I love that bored-teenager attitude of yours, young lady!"

I thought she was being sarcastic until she turned to Nagihiko.

"THIS," she said, "is a pocket-watch! Look at it and say, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!'"

**He's late for a very important date. With Rima.**

I had a pain in my side from trying to laugh as he said in a monotone, "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. I shall-be-too-late." Amu, Yaya, and Kukai's faces were all red form stifled laughter, too.

**What is with this girl and putting "form" instead of "from"?**

"Himamori-chan!" yelled Naka-sensei. "now you say, 'off with his head!'"

Tadase giggled a little then.

"why?" retorted Amu. We could all hear the 'cool and spicy' tone back in her voice. "you haven't explained why. That's ridiculous."

**Because she said so, beech.**

I saw Ikuto silently laugh through the window. I guess cat ears can even hear through glass. Then again, it would be pretty hard for someone NOT to hear Naka-sensei.

"JUST SAY IT!" screamed Naka-sensei.

"off-with-his-head!" squeaked Amu really fast, and Ikuto fell over onto the grass, laughing his ass off. And I can't exactly blame him.

Oh, god. I just felt something nudge my pocket, and I rushed out. I don't even care if Naka-sensei busts me later.

Outside

"KusuKusu!" I shrieked quietly, wrenching the egg open.

"Rima-tan!" she said, trying to keep upbeat. "what is it?" she had gone even paler now. And she weighed almost nothing. Actually, I could feel myself hyperventilating.

"is there anything I could do to make you not disappear?" I asked, trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. NO way am I going to let some kid playing hooky in the halls see the amazing Rima Mashiro on the verge of tears.

"**NO way am I going to let some kid playing hooky in the halls see the psychotic egotistical maniac on the verge of tears."**

"Yes," she replied, "I think so. But no way in hell am I going to ask that of you. No way!"

"anything!" I insisted.

"No!" she said, glaring at me. I had never seen KusuKusu glare. She was always happy, and rarely got into arguments.

**Scary clown. Pennywise?**

"you're going to let this happen to yourself? I need you! what will I do when I'm upset? Or when Mom and Dad fight?"

KusuKusu gave me a grin. "A time comes when you don't need Guardian Charas to make you feel better. You get something else instead. Ne, Rima-tan?"

One of the tears spilled over, and I wiped it away hurriedly. That's when the bell rang, and I quickly got off the floor as the hallways filled with students, getting out the door before the pesky hall monitors gave them detention.

"Rima?" someone said behind me. "are you coming?"

"go away, Fujisaki," I mumbled, still wiping my eyes.

"Oooh, I'm so hurt. You're going to have to try harder if you want to get rid of me."

***holds up fork***

"stop it, Ri-Ri-tan," said KusuKusu. "Clowns don't act that way."

**Unless they're scary murderer clowns that want to kill you.**

She settled herself comfortably on his shoulder.

"you're all betraying me," I grumbled, putting my school coat on and picking my bag.

"Rima?" said Nagihiko suddenly. I noticed the halls were empty. Why do we always end up alone? I bet Amu is ditching me on purpose. Nasty. He said quietly, "You've been crying."

"you'd cry too if your Shugo Chara was on the brink of death, and she says that you don't need her anymore," I said, but I went red anyway.

Then he hugged me from behind. "What's with the hugging?" I asked, trying not to get choked up again. Well, at least I was talking this time, instead of standing there dumbfounded while he evaporated.

**Hug count: 3**

"Niiii," he said, sticking his tongue out. "you're my friend. Right?"

"What? No way! I hate you, remember?"

**He forgotted.**

"Sure you do. Okay. Although you're Amu's best friend too. You know that, don't you?"

I stopped so fast he walked into me. "Really?"

"Yeah."

We walked in silence for about five minutes until I thought up another question. "why are you stalking me?"

"Stalking is not walking next to someone. Stalking is following someone by jumping from tree to tree like Ikuto is doing to Amu right now."

"creepy stalker. Did you see him looking at her during Drama, too?"

He laughed, but then sobered up again. "She's going to have to choose someday, won't she?"

**No. It's a love triangle that will forever go on forever. Did I mention forever?**

"yep." I felt my eyes then. They still felt hot. "Nagihiko," (I regretted the minute the words came out of my mouth, as I accidentally called him by his first name), "are my eyes still red?"

**How does one feel their eyes? *pokes eyeball***

He looked. "uh, yeah. Do you have any allergies? Actually, your entire face is red."

"I don't know. Well, I was out that whole time in that freezing hallway because the thermostat was broken."

"that must be it-" but that's when I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. Who does that? It's like tripping over a cordless phone. **Or falling up the stairs, or getting hit by a parked car. **And then I fell backwards and HE CAUGHT ME. And as soon as I tried to stand up, I tripped again and he had to catch me again and all I remember thinking was, "_you BAKA, Ri-Ri-tan! You BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA." _

**Arthur Kirkland moment, much?**

"Rima? I think you have a fever," he sounded really upset, too, like the world was coming to an end.

"I can stand perfectly well. See?" I said, but my legs were all wobbly.

"all the same... do you want me to carry you?" he grinned. Evilly.

"No. No way."

Later

When I fell down for the fifth time, he finally went, "Oh, screw it," and picked me up. Not like a little kid, either, but draped across his arms. Kind of like in shojo manga when the girl passes out and the guy carries her to the hospital or whatever and there are flowers dotted on every panel.

"you're horrible," I said, and he just laughed.

NASTI;lakjsd;fdss god I'm sleepy.

**Sleepy pencilsmash.**

My bedroom

The first thing I thought when I woke up in my bed at home was :_"you baka. BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA."_ **Arthur Kirkland count: 2 **The second thing was, _"where's Nagihiko?" _third was, _"why am I in my bedroom?_" and the fourth finally made sense: _"he must have carried me all the way up the stairs. Never mind that; he came into my HOUSE!" _

Then my mom walked in, all worried. "Oh, Rima! You're up! Good. I want to talk to you about something."

"what?"

She made herself comfortable in my swiveling desk chair, and then she said slyly, "who was that boy? He's cute."

**Who was that boy? He looked like a transvestite.**

I smiled. "just a friend."


	13. His Bunny Suit of Awesomeness

Tuesday

There was, once again, plenty of time before school started. So I went to our table to see if anyone was there. And everyone was.

Am I writing retarded?

**At least she didn't spell it "retarted."**

Anyway, everyone was there except Amu, who showed up right behind me.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"N-nothing," she said, going bright red.

"Really?" said Nagihiko idly. "does 'nothing' start with an 'I'?"

**Apple's latest invention: iNothing. Damn, they're coming out with new things too fast. First the iWhatTheHell, now the iNothing. GEEZUS.**

"Now whose bad at spelling?" I said, giving him a look.

"Ehheh," said Amu, staring off into space, still bright red.

"I know why you're late," I said flatly. "you had to take the long way to school to lose Ikuto. Right?"

"THAT WASN'T THE REASON AT ALL!" she shrieked, but the colour of her cheeks was an equivalent to a flashing neon sign reading, "Hi! A cat-eared pervert just tried to stalk me for fun!'.

Tadase purposely was staring at the wall of the school.

**Can you hear Ikuto banging his head against it?**

"Hey, Nagihiko," I said, interrupting Hontoo ni Tada-GAY's doom-and-gloom session. "did you do that essay for English?"

Amu choked on her drink, and Yaya gagged on her Pocky.

"Yeah," said Nagihiko, still reading one of Tadase's books (it was black and had a pair of hands holding an apple on it. It was really quite emo). "Why?"

**This most likely relates the chapter (supposed to be 12) of this—the bonus story, Shugo Twilight. Which I didn't MST, because I didn't feel like it. Get mad if you want. I don't care.**

"Can I copy it?"

"Neh."

"Meanie."

He grinned, and all the Nagihiko-fangirls hiding behind shrubbery shooting me daggers swooned.

"**Did that shrub just swoon?" Kichii asked, being ignored by everyone.**

Amu began, "what-" but Kukai kicked her under the table.

Why are they acting so funny? Oh, right. usually I want to kill Nagihiko.

Anyway, then the bell rang.

English

Hanasaki-sensei, our English teacher, was all, "We're going to start studying Shakespeare. Can anyone tell me what Shakespeare is?"

**I know WHO he is, but not WHAT…**

Nagihiko put up his hand.

"O-K, Nagi-chan!" giggled the teacher. Nagihiko is a TOTAL teacher's pet!

"William-Shakespeare-was-born-(a bunch of numbers I forgot) in Stratford-upon-Avon. He-was-married-to-Ann-Hathaway-in18(some number I forgot). He had three children; Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith. He-wrote-over-thirty-seven-plays. Most-famous-of-these-plays-is 'Romeo And Juliet, 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', 'As You Like It', 'All's Well Ends Well', 'Julius Caesar', and 'Antony and Cleopatra'. Shall I continue?"

**That's the most I've learned about Shakespeare in my life.**

There was stunned silence for a minute, and then Hanasaki-sensei said in a dazed voice, "No. No, that's OK."

Lunch

Amu got rid of Kukai and Tadase by saying she had to go to the bathroom, and then she dragged me into a stall, locked the door, and hissed, "Tell me!"

**TELL ME WHERE THE TREASURE IS, BEECH.**

"What?" I said.

"Nagihiko, you. Tell. Now."

"You sound jealous for some reason."

She rolled her eyes. "you're really, really bad at changing the subject. Please. Yesterday you were all like, 'blah, blah, blah, I hate Fujisaki.' And today you were all, 'Hi, Nagihiko! La, la, la!' So, tell me: are you going out?"

"No." I said in my passive voice.

**Denial.**

She sighed.

"Why do you sound disappointed?"

"No reason."

**She wanted to see babies.**

"She's lying, Rima-chan," said a voice from the window. Yeah, there's only one person you know who's stalkerish enough and a good enough climber to get up to the girl's bathroom window. **Spider cat, spider cat. Does whatever a spider-cat does… **Yep! It was Ikuto. "she just likes playing matchmaker."

"THIS IS THE GIRLS BATHROOM, YOU PERVERT!" said Amu, flaring up.

I started laughing quietly behind my hand.

"So?"

"So, you cosplay freak, you could go to jail for sexual harassment!"

"What's wrong with jail?" said Ikuto, his face theatrically mournful. "it would be cool and badass."

No longer able to hide my laughing behind my hand, I starting laughing even louder.

"Rima-chan, shut up or the hall monitors are going to hunt us down," hissed Amu, and I sobered up.

**Because those hall monitors LOVE to follow people into the bathroom.**

"Oh, is that who those people are in the orange vests?" said Ikuto, mildly interested. "They _might_ be all locked in the janitor's closet."

**Closet monitors.**

"You locked up the hall monitors? Brilliant!" I said, laughing again.

"Well, they said I wasn't allowed to climb school buildings," said Ikuto, now inspecting his nails.

"So you locked them up?" said Amu, her voice going all insane and high-pitched.

"You'd think he'd committed murder," I commented.

"We're going, Rima-chan," said Amu, giving Ikuto a copyrighted Death Glare.

**I feel that next time I give someone a death-glare, I'm going to be arrested for plagiarism.**

Drama (ugh)

Naka-sensei has officially started Duchess training for Yamabuki Saaya!

"YAMABUKI!" she yelled. "COME HERE!"

Saaya flounced over.

Then she gave Saaya a sheet with a bunch of lyrics on it.

AND THEN SAAYA HAD TO SING IT. NOOOO!

**That's what you usually do with lyrics, duh.**

And thus, she started in her whiny opera voice, "speak roughly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes, for he can thoroughly enjoy the pepper when he pleases!"

**Hurr, that's not SCREWED UP at ALL.**

I think my ears are bleeding.

**I think my eyes are bleeding from reading this.**

Later (still in drama)

Naka-sensei said, "oh, by the way, I got a few costumes. You know, for the main characters and such."

OK. MY COSTUME IS THIS BIG POOFY BLUE DRESS! IT'S DISGUSTING!

AND I HAD TO TRY IT ON.

AND THEN NAKA-SENSEI MADE ME COME _BACK _OUT INTO THE DRAMA ROOM SO EVERYONE COULD SEE!

There was silence for a minute, and then Yaya, Amu, and Nagihiko all glomped me going, "YOU LOOK FRIGGING KAWAII, RIMA-TAN!"

**YOU SO SUPA KAWAII DESUUUUUUU!111!ONE!1!**

"What are you talking about?" I said. "I look like those freaky china dolls."

**China is a country. Therefore, his—IT'S—name should be capitalized. Kthxbai.**

"That's a good thing!" said Naka-sensei maniacally, butting in. "Oh, yeah, and I got yours too, Fujisaki."

AND SHE HELD UP A BUNNY SUIT!

**Did it come with a matching skirt, like in Doki! And fishnet tights? Gotta love the fishnet tights.**

And then I started laughing crazily. After about five minutes, KusuKusu got slightly heavier and character changed, making me go "bala-balance!" and keep laughing like a homicidal maniac.

Nagihiko said kind of weakly, "Do I have to?"

"YES!" said Naka-sensei, who looked like she was having the time of her life. And then she made Nagihiko do a two-foot hop in the bunny suit saying 'Pyon! Pyon!'.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is your laugh of the week.

**No it isn't. It's my "mentally scarring image" of the week.**

Science

Meh.

Mizumori-sensei, my demon science teacher, said he needed to talk to me.

**Am I the only one who thinks that "Mizumori" sounds like a female name?**

Actually, I call him a demon because I have this theory that he has a nine-tailed fox inside him, like in _Naruto_, because he has these random spazzes when our class when we, let's just say, gets a C average on a test.

**He be Narutarded.**

Anyway, he was all like, "Mashiro-san, do you know what mark you're getting in science?"

"No."

"Would you like to know?"

"No."

But he showed me anyway. I knew he would. "do you know what letter grade forty-five percent is, Mashiro-san?"

"No." well, I actually did, but I wanted to see the nine-tailed kitsune inside him spaz out again. That would be fun.

But he told me anyway. Sigh.

"It's a D."

**What the—I want THEIR grading scale, man! Here, anything below a sixty-eight percent is an effing F! An effity effing EF!**

"Huh."

"Is that all you have to say?" he said, breathing really fast. _Oh, good, _I thought, _here it comes. He'll spaz out and his eyes will go all orange and maybe the room will explode-_

**Or his head. Brains, yum.**

"Mizumori-san? What do you do when you're done the worksheet?" Nagihiko said, interrupting the Mizumori crazy moment. "oh, sorry, you're talking to Rima-chan."

"No, no, that's quite OK, Fujisaki-kun," said Mizumori-sensei, burying the nine-tailed kitsune and going all smiley. Teacher's pet alert. "I was just going to call you over, actually."

Nagihiko gave me a trademark evil grin, and then said, "oh, really?"

"Yes. You see, Mashiro-san is getting a D in science." He showed me the marking sheet... again. "do you know what letter grade ninety-eight percent is, Mashiro-san?"

**Not good enough, because we all know that Nagihiko-the-awesome should have a one-oh-two percent.**

"No."

"That's because you're getting a D in math, too," said Nagihiko under his breath.

"It's an A, Mashiro-san," said Mizumori, still with the silly grin on his face.

"Huh."

"And that's why Fujisaki-kun is going to tutor you in science."

"WHAAATT?"

**PWNED**

They were both giving me evil grins. "don't worry, Rima-chan," said Nagihiko, holding back laughter. "it'll be fun."

Fun, my ass.

**Nagihiko would think so- *SHOT***

After school

OH MY GOD.

OH MY GOD.

**OH MY GOOD GOLLY GOSH!**

I SWEAR TO GOD, I AM NEVER TRUSTING FUJISAKI NAGIHIKO EVER AGAIN. EVER. EVER. EVER AGAIN.

**Throw in an extra "ever" for the road, will ya?**

I was just walking behind the school through the student parking lot. Everyone had gone home, but I had to stay and do some annoying ex-guardian paperwork, and I was so upset over my stupid parents arguing over who's going to pick me up I decided to walk home.

And then, guess who I saw? Yep. Nagihiko. But

Dammit, I'm still so freaked out I can really write it properly.

He was looking at his egg. Well, I know it's his egg NOW, but I didn't know then. It was TEMARI.

**Well, THAT cat's out of the bag—no, not Ikuto. He's still jumping from tree to tree, stalking a certain red-faced rosette.**

I stood there dumbfounded for a minute, and then he saw me. And he (predictably) panicked, and threw it back into his bag.

**Nagi should know better than to throw eggs after what happened to poor Riko.**

_Why would he have his sister's egg?_ I thought. _Weird. You shouldn't steal someone's would-be self. But,_ I continued to think, _Nagihiko wouldn't steal. No matter how evil he is to me, and no matter what a kindly airhead his sister is, he wouldn't steal. Now that I think about it, they are way too similar to be twins, though. They both like cooking, and sewing, and both have the same hairstyle. Why the hell would Nagihiko keep his hair long unless..._

And then it hit me.

**Like a ton of bricks and a tsundere-block.**

And then I felt really, really sick.

**She's suddenly wondering whether Nadeshiko is Nagihiko, or if Nagihiko is Nadeshiko. Er… Translation: She's wondering whether he's REALLY a boy, or REALLY a girl. Once again, I'm still in favor of calling him an "it," because at this point, no matter what gender Nagihiko REALLY is, we're going to be tricked into thinking that he/she is the OPPOSITE. Fah… If you understood any of that, you must have an IQ of around six hundred… **

"You..." I began, but didn't finish. Actually, I _couldn't _finish because I started hyperventilating quietly because

I had met both of them. And now I find out they're the same person. WHY?

if Nadeshiko is Amu's best friend, and Nadeshiko _is_ Nagihiko, then that means Nagihiko is Amu's best friend. And he's so diabolically evil now I'M his friend but I'm also friends with Nadeshiko which makes me... what?

**Crazy.**

HE HASN'T TOLD THE REST OF THE GUARDIANS. Or maybe they actually _do_ all know but have been hiding it from me. Wait, that's really stupid.

screw not telling the guardians, he hasn't told AMU. HE'S BEEN BACK FOR FOUR YEARS AND HE HASN'T EVEN BOTHERED TO TELL HER!

**Apparently, someone's brainwashed our poor little RiRi-Tan. Because in case you don't remember, she found out about Nadeshiko FOUR YEARS AGO in canon. Either her memory's as bad as her spelling, or she's just really, really… blonde.**

It was only the last idea that I voiced.

"YOU HAVEN'T TOLD HER?" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "YOU IDIOT! YOU SICK, TWISTED IDIOT! AND-"

At that moment he put his hand over my mouth. And then he did something he definitely wouldn't to otherwise. He threatened me.

"Tell Amu, and I kill you."

**With a fork? Because girly transvestites with forks are even more dangerous than midgets with forks, or so I've been told.**

I pried his hand off my mouth, and said (in a voice, now that I think about it, was kind of high and shrieky) "tell Amu? Hell no! I'm going to tell EVERYONE! Four stupid years and you're too much of a coward to tell? Urgh! You make me sick!"

"Stop it," he said in a low voice.

"Stop _what?_ Me, stop? What about _you? _Lying to everyone!"

"Stop telling me this crap. You think I haven't told this to myself already? Oh, and that having to be a girl since I was five was my choice?" he laughed rather humorlessly. "I think you're smarter than that."

**She isn't. Really.**

I was silent for a minute, and then said, "Maybe I won't tell Amu _now_. But you have three days, and if you haven't done it by then I'll tell her myself. And probably more brutally than if you had done it."

"Three days?" he looked shocked.

"I think she'll be more happy **(that's "happier," Rima.)** to see her best friend back rather than pissed because you didn't tell her," I said grimly, sitting down on the fence. I think he probably heard the jealousy back in my voice, because he plunked down on the fence beside me in a misguided attempt to cheer me up.

Then something else hit me, and I scooted farther down the fence.

"What is it?" he asked.

I said in a voice seething with doom and disgust, "you've worn a skirt."

**Thank you, captain DERP.**

He purposely stared in the opposite direction.

"I'll take that as a yes. Ugh. Sucks to be you."

He smiled a bit. "Yeah, I think I prefer pants."

"At least you don't have to wear those nerdy shorts guys had to wear in elementary school."

"Those skirts weren't much better."

"Nuh-uh!"

We argued all the way down the block.

**I personally hate skirts. Pants all the way, man. And yes, I'm a girl. …I think.**


End file.
